Leaves on the vine (and other side-stories)
by paxbanana
Summary: More side-stories to MES. They're snapshots during and after the main story, posted in no particular order, and not exactly polished. Updated Chapter 5 for more content.
1. Chapter 1

Takes place some months after Measure Each Step ends

* * *

It was a rare thing to see Azula alone. She sat in Ursa's garden cradling a cup of tea in her hands, and she watched the rustling leaves of the palm trees contemplatively. She'd gained a new stillness during her pregnancy that Iroh had never seen in her before. Maybe it wouldn't have been so surprising, but she had been at the South Pole until a month ago. She'd returned enormously pregnant and strangely content.

When he approached her table, she looked up at him without a shift in her expression. Her golden gaze was unusually gentle.

"May I join you?" he asked.

She nodded and sipped her tea. Azula wasn't being unwelcoming; he had no doubt she would have sent him away if she didn't want company.

Iroh waved away the servant after the man placed a second cup down for him. He poured his own tea and took a breath. Jasmine, and by the hint of mint it was a blend from Gaoling. It wasn't his favorite tea, but his daughter was fond of it. Azula had not spoken so he asked her, "How are you feeling?"

"Like an over-inflated war balloon," Azula replied. Despite her words, she seemed happy. Far too happy to be ready to have that baby. She was still carrying it high, as pregnant as she was. She was beautiful and very womanly like this. She reminded him of Ursa, even with the sharper planes of her face and the unmasked intensity of her eyes.

Azula took a breath and winced. "And tired of my child using my internal organs as kicking practice."

Iroh watched the subtle flutter across Azula's belly. He itched to reach out and feel the movement of her unborn child, but there were certain liberties no one ever took with Azula—unless that person was Katara. She glanced at him, sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Honestly. I won't miss my body serving as the medium of communication between a child and the world. Touch if you want."

It was enough to bring tears to his eyes; Azula made no comment. Iroh placed his hand on Azula's silk-covered belly and grinned at the flutter against his hand.

Azula sipped her tea. "Since I've returned, the council members have all switched seats. All the women arrive early to sit as close to me as possible, and they all giggle and gasp when they see my child trying to stick its foot through my uterus. If Zuko extends his vacation, I will kill him and then resurrect him from the dead to become the fulltime Fire Lord again."

Iroh laughed at the mental picture of the council room and then because Azula had been so affectionate with her threat against her brother. The baby kicked again before Iroh withdrew his hand. He had no doubt Katara kept careful track of the baby's growth; he wondered how much Katara could tell about the child. "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"

Azula studied her teacup. "Katara tried to keep that secret for all of a week. It's a boy."

A boy. A son. A grandson.

Azula met his eyes. "May we name him Lu Ten?"

He had never expected it, and his surprise melted into sorrow and joy and love. Iroh began to weep. Though he couldn't speak, he nodded. Azula touched his hand, and he took it and squeezed.

* * *

The baby was crying in his arms, the soft cry of a newborn. He was a quiet baby, but he was strong and healthy. Iroh cradled that tiny velvety dark head in his hand and soothed him. "Lu Ten," he said. His voice was thick, but he smiled as the baby opened his blue eyes.

Iroh began to sing.

"Leaves from the vine  
Falling so slow  
Like fragile, tiny shells  
Drifting in the foam.  
Little soldier boy  
Come marching home.  
Brave soldier boy  
Comes marching home."

He said, "Welcome home, little boy."


	2. The arts

Timeline throughout MES. Ursa tries (and fails) to make Azula respect the arts: flower arranging, tea ceremony, poetry, and painting.

* * *

There was a certain art to the arrangement of flowers. Often one tiny bouquet could center a huge room or set the tone for a massive party. Color, species, and arrangement could change the meaning and feng shui of a filled vase entirely. Or that was what all of Ursa's tutors told her. Honestly, flower arranging was the least interesting of all the arts, but it seemed like the best contrast the war and violence that her daughter seemed to revel in.

Until Ursa looked over and studied the vase Azula had arranged.

White on red, the entirety of it. The red was the fire lily, which could have several interpretations aside from the obvious one. There were also red carnithians, which could symbolize anything from life's blood to the body's heart. The white flowers were also lilies. Usually a cream colored hybrid was better for a paler contrast to the brilliancy of the fire lily. (The fire lily was not in any way related to the true lily. Ursa remembered because she had failed a flower arranging test in her youth based upon that single question.) The fire lilies completely overshadowed them, and they were scattered throughout in a swirling pattern, arranged high enough to show their brilliant orange sides. The carnithians were buried deep in the white lilies in pools of brilliant red.

"What does that mean?" Ursa asked.

Azula looked at her vase with a slow smile. "It's the conquest of the Air Nomads."

White for air, the true lily for peace. Red for fire and war…and the carnithians were red blood spilt by that fire and war. Ursa looked at the arrangement again. It was gruesome. She didn't know what to say, especially with Azula's expression so smug.

Maybe they would try tea ceremony next.

* * *

When Ursa sat down across from Azula, Azula didn't offer her a cup, as was custom. Instead, she kept the entire set on her side. Instead of a liquid tea, she removed a whisk and frothed up one of the Fire Nation's bitterest teas into foul foam that Ursa had always hated. Iroh enjoyed it, but Iroh had never met a tea he didn't like.

That particularly tea preparation was attached to darker events. It was usually made during funerals, sometimes prepared for a grieving mother that had miscarried. Why was Azula preparing it for Ursa now?

Azula carefully portioned out the frothy tea. She spun the cup to Ursa's right inward first, which was wrong for several reasons. The cup to Ursa's right should have been her own. The preparer always prepared his own cup first to symbolize safety from poison, as the preparer would drink first as well. The cups should be turned laterally, not inward. When the cup was turned completely, Ursa saw the brilliant red vertical stripe on it. When Azula turned the other cup inward, it had a stark white stripe on it, the color of death. The cup to Ursa's left, the side of death.

From Ursa's perspective, the right tea cup that should have been her own was Azula's, marked with the stripe of the bringer of death. The left tea cup, Ursa's cup, was presented to Ursa's weak side, marked with the color of the dead.

This was a tea ceremony that marked the beginning of a ceremonial suicide, which involved cutting out one's own diaphragm and giving one's head to their opponent. Ursa was in the position of the individual who would end their own life. Ursa shot her daughter an outraged stare, but Azula continued each careful gesture with sober concentration.

Why was it a surprise that her daughter had studied this ceremony extensively? She'd probably practiced the appropriate beheading technique too: leaving a strip of skin at the throat so the head wouldn't fall off and roll away. Ursa let Azula continue to the end, but she didn't reach for her cup. In the real ceremony, the person committing suicide would drink before death. The beheader would drink after the suicide.

Maybe poetry writing next… But Ursa was already anticipating an odyssey marked by war, murder, and death.

* * *

"Look at this."

Ursa handed Iroh a long, carefully inked scroll. He set down his book and rolled the scroll out to its full length. Azula's handwriting wasn't beautiful if only for its perfection, but she could fit a lot on a page.

Iroh ticked his head with each line, and his lips twitched into a smile then a frown. He probably only read one stanza before he set the scroll down. "May I keep this?"

"Why would you want to?" she asked him, remembering the awful tragedy inscribed on it.

"It's actually a rather clever retelling of that legend." He picked up the scroll again. "The rhythm in the meter is flawless, at least for the first stanza."

"It's about war," Ursa pointed out.

"Azula grew up on war."

"Zuko doesn't think about it all the time!"

"Zuko is much different than Azula," Iroh said. The only reason Ursa didn't get angry at his audacity to dare tell her something she obvious already knew was because he was downcast as he said it.

He wanted to tell Azula the truth. Ursa didn't think it was a good idea, not yet, but she did understand his desire. It mirrored her own quiet wish to come to him at night, slide into his bed, and find comfort in his arms again. That wouldn't do. It wasn't the right time, and Ursa admitted to herself that the time might never be right for them.

"What am I going to do with her?" she asked weakly. "She's so unhappy."

"We can only help Azula as much as she wishes us to. The fact she's here, living with us…" Iroh trailed off and touched the scroll. "In time, she'll find her happiness, but I don't think we'll have much to do with it."

Maybe it was true, but Ursa would do everything she could to distract Azula from her training and her constant research. Maybe she would try painting next.

* * *

Of all the things Ursa expected from her daughter, she didn't expect Azula to simply leave the palace. The only reason she hadn't gone after her was because Azula took her servants with her. She was going to live on Ember Island, away from them. This wasn't what Ursa wanted, and she thought she could kill Iroh for telling Azula the way he had.

But when she returned to her quarters, she found him waiting for her with tears on his face.

She hadn't factored in his hurt. Ursa reached out to him, and he yanked her against his body. He was muscular still, but his body had softened with age. It still amused her that she was a bit taller than he; her first memory was of him larger than life. Iroh's beard scratched her cheek, and his tears were cold against her skin.

Azula was his daughter, and she had never trusted him enough to tell him the truth. "I love you," she told him, as she had never told him before. She'd been too afraid to trust, too afraid to let go, too afraid to rely on him to protect her and her children. So she'd thrown him aside, kept Azula a secret from him, and never gave him a chance to be the father to Azula that he could have been, the father she deserved.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked her. His hands tightened on her back. "Why? I could have protected you. I would have married you. We could have been a family."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." It was the only answer she could offer.

* * *

 _-ten years later-_

"Good morning."

Ursa looked up in surprise to see Azula standing beside her table. She was shockingly pregnant, which was so strange in conjunction with her tight topknot and Fire Lord crest.

"Good morning, sweetie. How are you feeling?"

"Like a waddling turtle duck."

"You look like a cantaloupe on an arrow."

"Thank you. I think." How rare that Azula teased so easily. "I wanted to give you something." She handed Ursa a scroll. It was a thick paper used mostly for water paintings. Was this a little piece of art Ana had crafted?

Ursa untied the scroll and opened it.

It was a dragon painting…of Rakka eating an ostrich horse. Ursa supposed she should be thankful that Azula hadn't crafted an imaginary scene of her dragon eating a person. This truly came as no surprise. Ursa and Iroh had a little bet going on how long it would take Azula to paint one for Ursa since she'd danced her dragon into submission. Iroh had just won that bet.

All in all, it was a pretty little water painting that emphasized Rakka's brilliant blue coils. There was fluidity in the serpentine body that so often liked to cut off all of the garden paths by her apartment. Unfortunately, the red of the ostrich horse and its blood was a particularly brilliant contrast to the cool blue of Rakka's scales.

She lifted her eyes to her daughter in a dower gaze. "How lovely."

Azula smiled, but the expression was oddly gentle. Then she leaned over and kissed Ursa gently on the forehead. She was instantaneously forgiven. Azula had both remained exactly the same and changed so much. Ursa would never trade one for the other.


	3. Everyday argument

Takes place after MES ends. An everyday domestic argument between two headstrong women.

* * *

"Ana spilled ink on the couch."

"The what?"

Katara glanced at her wife. "The couch. That thing we sit on in the sitting room."

Azula slowly cocked her head with one eyebrow up. "That is a settee, not a couch."

"It's a couch," Katara challenged. What did Azula have to have such a hard head about these stupid things?

"It's a settee."

"Azula, they're exactly the same thing."

"I assure you, they're quite different. Perhaps their denotation may be the same, but the connotation is quite varied."

Katara wasn't sure if the words or Azula's dignity as she said them were funnier. "What does that even mean?"

Azula, bless her, was always patient enough to explain herself. "While the words may on paper be the same, they have much different implications."

That was just ridiculous. "It's a _couch_! How is there any implication?!"

"A couch may be found in some poor pauper's house. A settee is found in the Fire Lord's sitting room."

Katara folded her arms; she was irritated by that implication. "Oh, I see. This is a status thing. You're just saying your couch is more expensive than someone else's couch by calling it a settee."

Azula's jaw tightened. "I'm calling it a settee because it _is_ a settee. It is _not_ a couch."

"You just said they mean exactly the same thing!"

"I didn't say that at all. You're twisting my words—"

"And you're being a snooty princess—"

"I am a Fire Lord—"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I guess you didn't understand my implication—"

"You—!" Azula glowered. She took a breath, opened her mouth, and her shoulders drooped. She began to pout and repeated, "You're twisting my words."

"Admit it. It's a couch."

"It's a settee!"

"It's a couch."

Azula's lips pursed and her nose twitched, a sure indicator that she was getting angry. Katara was more amused than anything at this point. She could just imagine Azula thinking about saying: 'I'm the Fire Lord, and proclaim it's a settee! So there!'

Katara started to giggle. "I can't believe you're mad about this."

"You shouldn't argue with your pregnant wife. And you can be very irritating," Azula grumbled, but she softened immediately.

"Hey!" Katara gasped, but she started laughing.

Azula's expression thawed somewhat, but Katara sensed they'd be revisiting this issue. She wrapped her arms around Azula's neck and leaned her head against Azula's shoulder. She reached out to gently rub Azula's rounded belly. "Anyway, Ana spilled some ink on that-thing-that-I-call-a-couch-and-you-call-a-settee. I made her clean it up."

"How much more of a mess did she make doing that?"

Admittedly, it had been a lot worse, but the lesson had been in taking responsibility, not in the proper way to clean a fancy-pants piece of furniture. Katara kissed Azula's neck and concentrated on the son that shifted in Azula's womb. He was a healthy boy, and Katara had a shiver of anticipation that he would be a firebender. She'd been guessing right on that for a few years, but she didn't want to say anything to Azula in case she was disappointed.

A firebender son… Katara couldn't wait.

"I love you."

"I love you too. You're still irritating."

"And it's a couch."

"You'll be sleeping on it if you keep that up."

Katara gasped in mock anger, and Azula finally began to laugh.


	4. Laza daughter of Tazu

Laza, daughter of Tazu, is destined for marriage to the man of her father's choosing at sixteen. Too bad she's in love with someone unsuitable: a woman and a commoner.

* * *

The first time Laza saw Kili, she thought she was a servant. That was the only thing to explain a girl standing in a ring with a mongoose dragon so fearlessly, flicking her whip to direct the angry animal away from her. Servants were much braver than other people, she knew. Laza leaned against the railing and watched, eyes wide, as the mongoose dragon attacked and retreated in turn until it settled in the corner and hissed in quiet submission.

The girl in the ring—she wore trousers and a sleeveless tunic like a boy—turned and started at the sight of her. "Who are you?" she asked.

Laza stared back at her. She expected the other girl to vault over the railing and was quite disappointed when she opened and closed the gate instead.

"You're supposed to bow to me," Laza said.

The other girl raised a dark eyebrow. "Who are you?" she asked again.

"I'm Laza, Tazu's daughter."

The other girl shook her head.

"Zimani is my brother-in-law."

Now the other girl's face showed recognition. "You're the youngest daughter?" she asked.

Laza nodded.

"I'm Kili," she said. She smiled, and Laza went still at the sight. She'd never seen someone's face open up quite so quickly. "And I don't bow to prissy noble girls."

Laza followed her into the barn. "Why do you wear that?"

"What?"

"Tazu says women's arms aren't supposed to be seen. Princess Azula always wears sleeves, even in sparring practice. But she ties her sleeves. All the other girls tie their sleeves too even though they can't firebend like Princess Azula. All the teachers hate it. Tazu says sleeve ties are vulgar."

"Tazu says a lot," Kili replied. "What do you think?"

Laza stared at Kili, startled by the question. She had no idea how to answer. Kili gave her a vague smile and motioned her away. "I have work to do."

"Whose servant are you?" Laza asked.

Kili heaved a big sigh. "I'm Geno's daughter. He owns this farm."

"Oh," Laza said. She wasn't sure if she'd insulted a commoner by asking if she was a servant, and by the time she'd pondered that, Kili was gone.

* * *

Laza didn't really mean to go back, but she'd been loitering around the edges of the farm and caught sight of Kili. And then her feet had taken her to the strange girl. Now she followed Kili into the barn and talked to her back. For the most part, Kili ignored her. It was a lot like being at school.

"Princess Azula bends blue fire. Tazu says no woman needs to firebend, but Princess Azula is so good at it."

Finally Kili glanced over her shoulder at Laza. "My aunt serves in the Tenth regiment of the Fire Nation navy. She would fight Tazu to hear him say she doesn't need fire."

"Tazu means noblewomen," Laza explained.

"Can you firebend?" Kili asked her.

Laza nodded, uncertain by the attention she'd finally gotten. Kili raised her eyebrows. She called out down the stables, "I'm going out for a bit."

They walked to a packed earth ring. Kili sat down. She waved her hand. "Let me see it."

"Oh." Laza was vaguely discomfited. "I'm not very good."

"I can't firebend at all," Kili said with a smile. "Let me see what 'not very good' means."

Laza hesitated. Then she performed one of the simpler katas she knew by heart; Princess Azula had probably been doing this kata since she was a baby. Laza's fire was weak, and even then she had trouble controlling it, but when she'd finished Kili stomped her feet on the ground and clapped her hands in applause. "Bravo!"

Laza blushed. "It was bad. Princess Azula—"

Kili interrupted her. "You aren't Princess Azula. You're Laza. And that was pretty good to me."

* * *

Laza went almost every day after lessons to talk to Kili. She'd never been able to talk to anyone before. The other noble girls thought she was stupid, but Kili talked to her in turn and smiled. Granted, she smiled at things Laza hadn't meant to be funny, but she smiled. She _looked_ at Laza. She touched her—little pats and squeezes that meant friendship. The touches had been coming more and more frequently, as had Kili's smiles.

Soon she spent her days dreaming about what she would tell Kili next. And her daydreams shifted to thinking about Kili's strong arms, or her easy laugh or her white teeth or her certain confidence and strength sitting on the back of a mongoose dragon. Kili was brave and strong and independent.

She dreamed about Kili at home; she dreamed about Kili during meals; she dreamed about Kili during lessons. She looked forward to every afternoon that she could slip away to see her. She thought of her all the time and was happy to have that secret joy to hold close. Kili was different. Kili was interesting. Kili liked her.

Laza was thinking of Kili when her history teacher called on her to answer a question about Sozin's conquest of the Air Nomads. She bumbled the answer, and Princess Azula's glare was sharp enough that Laza felt it pierce her heart. But even in that, she enjoyed it only because she could tell Kili about it.

"Fuck Azula," Kili said that afternoon.

Laza gasped in terror. "You can't say that!"

Kili raised her hands. "Fuck Azula!" she shouted. She turned in a circle with her hands raised. "I'm not dead," she said when she completed her circle.

"But Princess Azula—"

"Laza, do something for me. When you talk to me today, don't say anything that starts with 'Princess Azula' or 'Tazu says'."

Laza opened her mouth and had to close it again. Kili looked at her and laughed for some reason. "The look on your face," she said not unkindly. Laza smiled back at her uncertainly.

* * *

When she turned fifteen, Tazu set up her first marriage interview. She had no idea what was happening, but she arrived home from the royal academy to be primped and put in her best robes. Her bodyservant, a sweet woman who had been the closest thing Laza had ever had to a mother, looked at her with tears in her eyes.

"What do I do?" Laza asked her. Her eyes were wide in the mirror.

Hana kissed her head gently. "Just be yourself, little lady."

That was the silliest advice anyone had ever given her. Laza's sisters and all the older girls at the academy said you had to seduce a good husband. She didn't really know what that meant, but all the girls were giggly when they said it. Laza's sister, Taza, told her to bat her eyelashes and giggle at whatever the man said.

She stepped into the little room her marriage interview was in, closed the door, and balked as she saw the man sitting at the little table.

He was old. He was older than Tazu. He was fat, and he looked at her like she was a tasty meal. It made her shiver, and not in the pleasant way the sight of Kili's sweaty silk-covered back made her shiver. This was a bad shiver.

She pasted on a smile, batted her eyelashes, and tripped over her robes.

He looked at her in surprise. Laza could sense Tazu's palpable anger. He was hiding behind a screen in one wall to watch; her sisters had told her he would do this. Laza collected herself, tittered, and sat down. The old man still gave her an odd look, but he smiled soon enough.

"Laza," he said. His voice was reedy and soft. It was a good voice, surprisingly. "What do you like to do?"

"Oh, nothing," she said with a titter. Raza had told her that men liked their women empty, but the man across from her gathered his brow. It made him look like he had a beard over his eyes. The thought made her giggle, which made his brow gather further.

She quickly reached for the tea. Her wide sleeves dragged across the sugary topping on the pastries on the table. She jerked her arm up to avoid that and ended up upending the entire pot of tea on the old man across from her. She gasped in horror and quickly covered her emotion with a titter.

The man stood up, his silk robes dripping, and walked out of the room. He didn't come back.

Laza was just beginning to realize it had been an absolute disaster.

She usually waited until the end of royal academy classes to slip away to visit Kili at her father's farm, but Laza just walked out of Tazu's estate that evening. He was so angry she doubted he'd miss her anyway. It was dark by the time she'd arrived at the trade district. The boy who opened the door of the big merry house beside the mongoose dragon farm gaped at her.

"Hey, Kili," he called over his shoulder. "Your cute noble girlfriend is here!"

A moment later, Kili had shoved the boy out of the doorway. She looked at Laza's robes and her makeup and frowned. "Come in, Laza. Are you okay?"

Laza nodded with a happy smile.

"Have you eaten dinner?"

"No."

Kili motioned her into the comfortable house. The rooms were cluttered with soft furniture and silky wall hangings. It was comfortable and merry, and Laza was comfortable there. She smiled at the four people sitting at the table in the dining room. "Hi." She bowed. "I'm Laza, daughter of Tazu, son of Tazu."

The boy who had answered the door grinned at her. "Hello, Laza daughter of Tazu, son of Tazu. Ow!" He scowled at Kili, who said, "This is my stupid little brother, my cousin, and my parents."

Kili patted the cushion next to her. Laza sat down and her stomach rumbled at the smell of the food across the table.

"So, um, to what do we owe the pleasure of your presence?" Kili's father asked her.

"I felt like it," she replied.

Kili's parents exchanged looks. Kili quickly said, "Laza goes to the Royal Academy for Girls."

Kili's mother frowned. "They wouldn't admit Kili, even though she easily passed the entrance exams."

"Of course," Laza replied. "You aren't nobles."

A heavy silence settled over the table. Laza wasn't sure why she'd provoked that response. "Most of the noble girls in the school only pay attention in marriage preparation courses anyway. Princess Azula doesn't take those. She likes history and firebending. She's smarter and better than any of the other girls. She's going to be Fire Lord someday. She won't have to impress her husband."

Kili's family members were all goggling at her. Kili's father finally gathered himself to say, "But isn't Prince Zuko to inherit?"

It did present a bit of an issue, but Laza had the unshakable knowledge that Princess Azula was destined for everything. She said, "Princess Azula will win."

Killi's parents exchanged another look, and Laza helped herself to another helping of sweet tuber.

"Win what, my dear?"

"Agni Kai. Against whoever is Fire Lord when she wants the throne."

There was a long moment of silence, but Laza didn't mind. The food was exceptional. Finally, Kili cleared her throat uncomfortably. "What's your favorite class, Laza?"

She considered it for a moment. "I like physics."

"Like arithmetic?" Kili's father asked her.

"It uses arithmetic and calculus," Laza agreed. "But I like being able to know why things move like they do. We started with the acceleration of any object that falls. It's so clean. Of course there are confounding variables, but my teacher doesn't want to go into that detail; I wish she would though. My teacher says we'll start learning more about combustion next chapter. I'm glad because vectors are so simple. Once you've done one problem, you've done all the rest."

Everyone at the table was staring at her again. Had she said something wrong? She continued onto a more comfortable topic.

"Princess Azula likes history best. She can recite every Fire Lord in history, and she really likes the history of dragons and of Agni Kai. She did an oral report on the history of the gong they strike in the royal Agni Kai chamber. It's engraved with something about equality and fire. It was a grand speech, but the teacher was unhappy because she hadn't known about everything Princess Azula talked about."

"Do you speak with Princess Azula often?" Kili's mother asked.

"Oh, no," Laza gasped at the thought. "Sometimes she glares at me if I get a question wrong in class. She only talks Ty Lee and Mai, and she only talks to them because they're dangerous too. Mai wears knives in her sleeves, and Ty Lee took away Kazi's firebending one day during class. It came back later, but Kazi was _so_ upset. The other girls say Princess Azula keeps nonbender friends because she doesn't want anyone outshining her in firebending lessons, but who could? She bends blue fire! It's so hot it rushes. Normal fire kind of crackles, but Princess Azula's fire roars."

"I see," Kili's mother said. Laza smiled back at her, and the woman started. She returned the smile, and when she did, she looked a little like Kili.

They were all very nice to her, but Kili was very nice so it made sense.

After dinner, Kili walked her out of the house. She walked Laza out to the street, paid for a carriage, and sent her off with a gentle smile and the words, "Come again anytime." Laza realized she'd forgotten to tell Kili about her failed marriage interview when she stepped back into Tazu's estate.

The next day she went straight to see Kili to tell her about the marriage interview. She could make Kili laugh, and she liked to see Kili's white teeth against her tanned face.

"I had a marriage interview. That's why I came last night, but I forgot to tell you," she said.

Kili dropped the bucket of meat slop she'd been carrying. It splattered everywhere and prompted Laza to stagger back to avoid getting her robes dirty. "A marriage interview?" Kili bent to clean up the mess with her bare hands. "How old are you?"

"I turned fifteen a few days ago."

Kili looked up at her in surprise. "Why didn't you say anything? Happy birthday."

"Tazu says the only birthday that's important in a woman's life is her sixteenth birthday."

A look of unhappiness passed across Kili's face. "Hence the marriage interview, I guess."

"Who are you married to?" Laza asked the older girl.

Kili shucked the pail of nasty meat and gristle into a mongoose dragon's pen with a flex of her muscles. She glanced back at Laza. "I'm not married."

"But you're _old_!" Laza gasped.

"I'm eighteen," Kili replied. She seemed more amused than upset. Laza stared at her, unable to comprehend how an eighteen year old girl wasn't married.

"But you're engaged?" It would make sense if her betrothed was at war.

"Nope," Kili said. "I'm waiting to fall in love like normal people do."

"But my sisters say love is a myth."

"I'm pretty sure that's a big fat lie."

Laza frowned as she considered it. She watched Kili dunk her bucket to grab another slop of red meat. "They do lie a lot."

Kili sputtered with laughter for some reason. "You are a very strange girl," she said. She bit her lip. "Who are you marrying then?"

"I'm not marrying him. I was terrible," Laza said. "I'll have to get better to get a husband."

"Better at what?"

"Acting," Laza said. "My sisters say you have to act to get a husband. And then you have to act to keep one."

"Act to keep a husband," Kili echoed.

"Sex," Laza replied. "The great burden that all wives bear."

Kili shook her head. "It's not a burden. It's actually pretty fun if you do it with someone you like."

Laza gasped. "You've done it?"

"Just a couple of times."

"Tazu says a woman can only have sexual relations with her husband after their marriage. He says if a man gets a woman's virginity, he won't want her anymore."

"Tazu sounds like he was born about a thousand years too late." Kili wiped her hands on her trousers and then put her strong grip on Laza's shoulders. She was serious, and Laza stared into her dark eyes, mesmerized. "Listen to me. You can have sex with whoever you want. Your body is yours, not Tazu's or your betrothed or your husband's. You just have to make sure of the consequences."

"Consequences?"

"Pregnancy," Kili said, her eyebrows climbing. "And some pretty nasty diseases."

"How do you stop those?"

To Laza's shock, Kili slumped against her with a laugh. "Don't they teach you anything in the royal academy?"

"I wasn't being hypothetical," Laza said. "How do you stop those?"

Kili laughed for some reason. "For one, I had sex with girls so no chance of pregnancy. For another, I've only had sex with girls who hadn't had sex before…by chance, before you ask." Before Laza could contemplate that particular revelation, Kili met her eyes. "Don't be afraid to ask your potential partner questions, okay?"

She nodded without really knowing what she'd just agreed to. Kili patted her shoulder.

* * *

Several months and failed interviews later, Laza was bursting with her news. "I had another marriage interview."

Kili splashed her face with water. She was sweating, and she smelled like it. Laza had the strange desire to rub up against her and roll around in her clothes. "Oh?" Kili asked neutrally.

"He was young and handsome."

Kili's neutrality shifted into negativity for some reason. "Oh?" she asked again as she straightened.

Laza giggled.

Kili seemed to lose all motion. She stood strangely straight; the line of her shoulders was uncharacteristically stiff. "When are you getting married?"

Because of Kili's strange response, Laza's merriment dampened. "I'm not. I did better this time, I think, but he wanted to kiss me."

"You didn't let him," Kili replied sharply. If anything, she seemed angrier. "Tazu wouldn't let that kind of thing happen, right?"

Laza was surprised at the thought. "Oh, kissing is only natural. My sisters call it a test before purchase."

"He kissed you," Kili said quietly. Her gaze was sharp.

Laza laughed as she remembered it. "It wasn't so bad. But then he stuck his tongue in my mouth. And I bit him. He was really angry."

"You let him kiss you," Kili said. Laza balked at her tone, surprised by every single one of Kili's responses so far. She'd expected Kili to laugh at her terrible attempts.

"Tazu says—"

" _Fuck_ Tazu!" Kili seized Laza's shoulders. Laza blinked up at her. Her heart started to pound and she went a little lightheaded. "Damn him for throwing you away like this." Kili's looked at her lips, and Laza gasped. Kili looked into her eyes again. She said, "Don't bite my tongue."

And then Kili drew her close and kissed her.

Laza didn't bite her tongue.

"But why?" she whispered later, after Kili had stripped her naked to her waist and kissed far more than her mouth. "Why me?"

"You are the silliest, sweetest girl I have ever met," Kili murmured. She held Laza against her in the stable loft and brushed her fingertips against Laza's back. The touch made Laza shiver. "You deserve better than Tazu or Azula or whatever man he'll try to marry you to next." She caught Laza's gaze and said, "Whatever it is you're doing to hold them off, keep doing it."

She would do it if it meant she could be with Kili.

And she did. For ten years she put them off, balancing the careful edge of disgusting the men and keeping Tazu ignorant. No doubt he knew about Kili; he held it over Laza's head in silent threat: marry her and be disowned. But she gave him enough hope that she'd attract a rich suitor that he didn't disown her yet. Laza wasn't willing to give up yet, even with Kili breathing down her neck to elope.

When opportunity presented itself, it did so with the last person Laza had ever expected. Princess Azula returned to Capital City with all the dark, powerful presence she'd held during the war, and she'd asked for Laza. Tazu and his stupid noble friends expected to control Azula, but Laza knew better. And she saw in this moment an opportunity to make her own way.

She gambled everything, but she did it on a sure win.


	5. Compliments et cetera

Between Books 1 and 2… Replaced previous content with a more fleshed-out version I found after I uploaded the first. Just go with it.

* * *

Katara felt like she was going to come out of her skin as she stepped onto Ember Island shore. Despite herself, worries whispered in the back of her mind: What if Azula changed her mind? What if she found someone else? _What if she doesn't want me anymore?_

She walked into the courtyard of the house on Ember Island without much fanfare. The servants of the house looked at her in surprise, and Katara hurried through the house to the study. She was a little shocked to see Azula had her feet up on the veranda railing as she perused a book. The pose was just so informal it seemed uncharacteristic. When Azula looked up, her face, usually calm, opened in shock.

She was so beautiful, and Katara wanted so many things from her in that moment that she was as shocked as Azula looked.

"Katara," Azula said. Her chair clacked down on the floor sharply, and she got to her feet to step towards Katara.

They crashed together, and their mouths met hard enough to hurt. But who cared? They were breathing each other's air, moving in one direction for a reason Katara couldn't guess.

Then the floor seemed as good a place as any.

A few minutes later, Katara was aware that they were lying on a surprisingly soft rug, partly beneath Azula's desk. She hadn't expected _that_ to happen. She was suddenly aware that the door of the study was open. There was dead silence in the household.

"Well," Azula said with a slow, predatory smile. Her fingers tugged gently at Katara's nipple, and Katara shivered. She dropped back down for a long kiss, as mortified as she was that they'd just…

"Bed?" Katara asked, almost too embarrassed to pull up and belt her pants closed again. Oof, her body hadn't been quite ready for what they'd done so quickly and fiercely.

"Yes," Azula replied, a word that Katara was starting to know as well as her 'no's.

To Katara's mild surprise, they did wear each other out long enough to bathe and leave the bedroom to eat dinner "like civilized human beings" as Azula put it. Azula's staff blatantly didn't meet Katara's eyes as they brought out dinner. To Katara's surprise, it wasn't a fish meal. The meal centered around white-meat bird. She was further surprised to see Azula eat lightly breaded gizzards.

"A guilty pleasure," Azula admitted, which confirmed what Katara had guessed: it was considered food for the poor.

"Gizzards are good," Katara responded.

Her tribe was careful about their consumption of penguin otters; the flocks that lived around her village were fairly docile and unafraid because of that. And because they were possibly the even stupider than boobies. The eggs were a good nutrient source, but not as highly sought after as albatross eggs. The first time Katara had had a boiled egg from a flying bird, she'd thought there was something wrong with it. The so-called egg 'white' of a penguin egg cooked clear, and it tasted as fishy as the penguins' diet. The gizzard, similarly, was fairly fishy. These little gizzards tasted like the birds they came from were fed on water. Meat had very little flavor in the Fire Nation. Katara kept a private theory that it was the reason why they doused all of their meat in spicy and fruity sauces or breaded them like this one.

Not that she didn't enjoy it. Katara dunked a gizzard in what she assumed was fruity sauce. She coughed in pain as her sinuses cleared and her mouth felt like it caught on fire. She was busy drinking cool water to soothe herself for a few minutes and watched as Azula switched two dipping sauce containers.

Azula ate the spicy sauce without any indication she found it spicy. Katara took a hesitant taste of the one Azula had slid in front of her: fruity, what she'd originally wanted. Katara dunked a gizzard into it.

"Possibly the strangest combination I've seen," Azula remarked mildly.

Katara had to blow her nose from the residual effects of the spicy sauce she'd accidentally eaten. "I don't know how you eat that."

Azula smiled. "I enjoy the sinus-clearing effect."

Somehow they got to talking about the military and politics, particularly about the Hundred Year War. Katara didn't expect to be talking about the Fire Nation attack on the North Pole her first night back to Ember Island, but Azula had such interesting perspectives. It was nice to see her face twist in irritation as Katara explained the situation in the North Pole. Apparently Fire Nation soldiers had flubbed a few reports.

Now Azula pronounced, "Zhao was a fool."

Katara wondered if Azula was just bluffing; she was always so quick to point out other people's failures. Her next question was more of a challenge than anything. "What would you have done?"

"I certainly wouldn't have killed a spirit that's responsible for our tides. The Fire Nation relies upon its fishing, and who knows what would have happened to our navy." Azula pursed her full lips as she regarded her glass of cold fruit tea. It was so unfair for one person to be so unconsciously sexy. "I would have killed the Avatar and taken the chieftain's daughter as a hostage of the Fire Nation. I would have folded the Northern Water Tribe troupes into our own to use to take the Earth Kingdom."

"You're scary," Katara said with a sigh. She considered it and admitted, "That might have actually worked."

"I know," Azula replied. "I conquered Ba Sing Se, remember?"

"You're really proud of that, aren't you?"

"Shouldn't I be? The Fire Nation threw thousands of its soldiers at that city's walls for years, and a fourteen year old Princess with her two female servants conquered it in a few short days."

It was kind of impressive when Katara thought of it that way. She had a new appreciation for being able to go to a place that wasn't exactly welcoming to you. Azula brushed her ponytail from her shoulder and cocked her head. "Do you disagree?" she asked. Her golden eyes were intensely bright beneath her strong black eyebrows, and her hair was black and silky. Katara could only barely make out the curve of her breasts in her shirt, but she remembered them in detail.

Azula's graceful fingers caressed the rim of her glass, a slow gentle touch that switched fingers every stroke.

Katara remembered those fingers in other capacities.

Azula was wicked, wicked to her core, and Katara had missed that so much.

"I want to have sex with you," Katara blurted.

Azula raised her eyebrows and blushed.

What was even more wonderful: Azula had no idea she was so sexy.

* * *

The third time Katara visited Ember Island, she arrived in the late morning. She walked out onto the beach with every intention of tossing Azula down onto the sand and kissing her crazy. But she just had to stop with what she saw.

Azula was balanced in a handstand. She bent her knees, lifted her head to look at the ground, and flexed her arms to complete push-ups from that position.

Katara shivered. It wasn't the strength required or the sweat that had soaked through Azula's silk clothes or the concentration on Azula's face. It was the gracefulness of her ability to do that; the exercise was as much about balance as strength. Azula exhaled with her upward push, her bare feet flexed and shifting to keep her balance. She inhaled as she flexed her arms, exhaled as she pushed up again.

After ten, Azula held herself, trembling in her position. Then instead of putting her feet back on the ground, she shifted her weight, and leaned her shoulders forward from her palms until her body was balanced parallel with the ground.

She held that pose, still trembling, but breathing evenly, for over a minute. One final exhalation, and Azula flexed her body and rolled it beneath her shoulders to sit with her legs straight and her arms by her side. She leaned over her legs, set her forehead on her shins, and folded her arms around her feet.

Katara was breathing hard. She was already wet.

Azula made a noise of shock when Katara crouched in front of her and seized her hand. If Katara kissed her now, they might not make it back to Azula's bed. And Katara needed the privacy of a closed door.

"You're early," Azula said as Katara dragged her back to the house. "And I would prefer not to be manhandled—"

She gasped when Katara yanked her into the bedroom, shut the door, and shoved Azula up on it. Katara covered her mouth and rubbed their bodies together. She seized the sweaty silk across Azula's back and yanked it frantically.

"I'm disgusting," Azula gasped. "I need to bathe."

"I want you just like this," Katara moaned. She licked the sweaty skin of Azula's neck and moaned at the taste. She wanted to strip Azula naked, shove her down on the bed, and bury her face in Azula's wet folds. She wanted to make Azula scream and soak her with her musk. It made her even crazier to know that she could do it. Azula would let her, and they'd both love it.

* * *

"Shouldn't Tonk be having kittens soon?"

Azula actually looked insulted. "Absolutely not."

"There must be male cats that wander around."

"Males cats that have been castrated. And even then, my cat certainly won't be running around, yowling to be bred every few weeks. Her ovaries were removed months ago." Azula petted Tonk in her particular way that was more of a deep head massage than pets. Tonk's eyes closed in pleasure.

In the South Pole, they did a similar thing with any female sled dogs chosen primarily for that purpose, versus breeding. Hakoda claimed they usually developed a uterine infection for some reason, versus the bitches used for breeding. Sled dog breeding was amazingly complicated, something that Katara usually left to her dad.

Azula apparently decided Katara's silence indicated it was time for a little history lesson. "This island had an enormous overpopulation of feral cats twenty or so years ago. The local government was going to euthanize most of the animals, but a few bleeding hearts volunteered to pay for the cats to be captured, altered, and rereleased. It's now illegal for any wandering cat to be intact."

"Don't all cats wander?"

"Exactly," Azula replied.

Katara realized she'd walked right into that one. She used to think the Fire Nation was all bluster without a single thought to the future, but the more she found out about them, the more she realized the people who lead a war that ravaged the world weren't all bad. In fact, that little lesson was a hell of a lot like the Water Tribe.

* * *

"What are you doing?"

Azula shifted her head as Kota drew her hair up and began to scrub her back. "I'm bathing."

"But…" Katara watched helplessly as her very naked girlfriend was touched by another woman.

Azula glanced over her shoulder, baring a breast to Katara and to her servant. By default, Katara didn't really care about nudity. It was hard to be embarrassed about being naked when she grew up sharing a one-room hut with her grandmother and her older brother. This was a little much though. This wasn't just Azula being dressed by someone else (really, how hard was it to put on clothes?); this was Azula being touched and rubbed and…

Azula's eyes flicked across Katara's face. She twitched her hand, and Kota took herself away without a word.

"Do you care to join me?" Azula asked when Kota had shut the door behind her. Something about her tone suggested it was a defensive question.

Katara was similarly defensive. "Can't you start bathing yourself?"

One dark eyebrow rose dubiously. "How else would I wash my back?"

"It's not hard," Katara responded, mortified, irritated, and a tad amused at herself. "You use your arms like most other normal people in the world."

"Even Ty Lee isn't flexible enough to scrub her entire back." Azula's mouth pulled. "I hope you're not actually jealous of a _servant_."

"Why not? I'm a peasant," Katara shot back. That was probably a little unfair, but Azula's deep sigh and eye-roll after the fact didn't give Katara much perspective.

"You need to get over that," Azula said.

Katara narrowed her eyes. "What did you just say?"

"There's absolutely no reason to hold onto _one_ little statement I made in the middle of an admittedly rife situation. For dragon's sake, I called you a peasant after I nearly killed Zuko. Have a little perspective."

"I don't want to share you with anyone else!"

Azula's blinked and gave a little twitch to her head as if dislodging her last conversation strain. "Sharing what? Back washing duties? You aren't my servant, Katara."

"That's not all she does for you!"

"Yes, and the royal physician will start performing vaginal exams on me in a few years. Or should I forego that altogether? They're services, nothing more."

Katara opened her mouth to say: 'your body is mine'. She was so shocked by the thought that it didn't make it out of her mouth. Maybe Azula read that possession in her face because her irritation abruptly shifted to desire. She leaned back and opened her legs in blatant invitation. "Come here. I don't want you to wash my back."

That night, lying on her side on Azula's bed, Katara stared out of the filmy curtains at the bright moon that hung over the beach. Her mind chewed over a thought that wouldn't leave her alone: they couldn't resolve their conflicts with sex. Even if she did realize now how futile it was trying to convince Azula that allowing her servants to bathe her wasn't appropriate. Azula was right: it wasn't like Kota washed her privates or her breasts. Maybe Azula just didn't consider touch as important as Katara did.

Katara reached down and intertwined her fingers with the hand draped over her side. Azula shifted, smacked her lips, and began to breathe deeply again. If a woman washed Katara's back, she thought she would probably react to that touch, even sexually. She wouldn't feel desire, and she wouldn't have sex with that person. Katara certain didn't think Azula would either, but she just didn't like the thought of someone else bringing her any sort of physical pleasure.

This was a kind of possession she'd assumed she was immune to with Aang. And now here she was, jealous of Kota, who Azula didn't seem to notice existed unless she needed something. It was a dark _need_ that made her want to hold on so tightly, that scared her when she thought about leaving in a month. 'What if she finds someone else to do this with?' And, attached to that something even worse: 'what if this is the only thing I am to her?'

'Come home with me,' part of her wanted to say. The other part cringed at the thought of Azula in her village, sleeping in her hut, interacting with her people. Her dad would be _so_ impressed with Azula's snootiness. Azula would think they were all ignorant and backward. And then Katara would probably resent her for it, when a part of her looked at Azula and saw someone she was in love with.

The cold, hard truth was that Azula wasn't life-mate material. She hated children, was selfish, and she could make Katara feel so small sometimes, even if she probably didn't mean to. Katara felt like she knew Azula, yet the things Azula did for her: the care package, those awkward stilted letters, all clashed with the Azula that acted like she was better than everyone else. There hadn't been a tearful meeting or a demand that Katara never leave her again. Katara had hated Aang's desperate romantic declarations, but she wasn't sure how to judge the fact that Azula didn't act that way towards her.

Azula wasn't going to be a woman she could spend the rest of her life with, raising kids, and living with her family in the South Pole, but Katara loved her anyway. She just wasn't sure if Azula loved her back.

Azula stirred behind her and drew closer, breathing a warm exhalation against Katara's shoulder. "Why don't we go to the theater tomorrow?"

"What?"

"Theater," Azula mumbled, sighing deeply as she pulled their bodies flush and slipped a leg between Katara's thighs, sparking a shivery reaction. Azula started to breathe deeply again. Katara rolled her eyes and wiggled to give herself a little reprieve from the warm leg between hers since apparently Azula was asleep again. Just like her to randomly wake up, say something cognizant, and immediately fall back asleep. This was a good version. A bad version was Azula saying something about not wanting to disappoint 'Daddy'.

Maybe this was pity, Katara thought not for the first time. Maybe this all boiled down to wanting to erase all the problems she was just starting to realize existed in Azula's childhood. Maybe it wasn't love.

She was so afraid to commit. But as Azula nuzzled her neck, Katara realized it was way too late to worry about that.

* * *

Katara primped and readjusted her robes. She checked her hair one last time and reapplied lip-stain. She thought she looked good. She hoped Azula thought so. It felt kind of weird to be all nervous about a date when she'd technically started sleeping with Azula six months ago.

It was just that Azula had such specific tastes. Impressing Aang required letting her hair down and giving him a kiss. Azula was a whole different animal.

When Katara stepped into the courtyard of the Ember Island beach house, Azula looked her up and down and swallowed. She wore an adorable look of uncertainty that immediately put Katara at ease. (Azula was such a contrast of gentle and sharp.) She would have appreciated that look more, but in the long moment that Katara waited for the compliment to come, Azula remained silent.

Azula finally offered her arm. "Shall we?"

"It wouldn't kill you to compliment a girl sometimes," Katara said a little irritably. She wasn't vain, but it was nice to actually hear that Azula liked the way she looked. Especially when she was self-conscious about what exactly Azula liked about her in the first place.

To her shock, Azula blushed. "Compliments aren't my…greatest skill."

Damn, she couldn't be mad with Azula blushing like that. "What's there to be good at?"

Azula sighed and actually looked sheepish. They were both settled in the carriage before she answered. "I'll give you an example. I once complimented a boy's clothing."

"A little unorthodox, but I don't see the issue." Katara arranged her skirt.

"I said it was sharp."

 _Sharp_? What? Katara raised an eyebrow and tried to meet Azula's eyes. "Well, that's…not horrible."

Azula pointedly kept her eyes turned out the carriage window as they rolled along the quiet jungle road. "I said it was sharp enough to puncture the hull of an empire-class Fire Nation battleship."

Katara opened her mouth but couldn't think of anything to say. She definitely didn't feel self-conscious anymore. Predictably, Azula had moved past her own embarrassment to enjoy Katara's shock. She grinned fiercely and finally met Katara's eyes as she continued, "Leaving thousands of men to drown at sea."

Katara held in her laughter and managed to say, "Please, say that all at once. Compliment my clothing."

"That's a sharp outfit, Katara. It's so sharp you could puncture the hull of an empire-class Fire Nation battleship, leaving thousands to drown at sea."

Katara couldn't breathe. She doubled over with her silent laughter and clutched at Azula's sleeve. She went to her knees in the carriage, then dropped against Azula's seat and cried with laughter.

"Well, you're more appreciative of my metaphor than he was. Though I get the feeling you aren't taking me seriously." Azula's voice was colored by amusement.

When Katara could breathe again, she reclaimed her seat. Katara carefully wiped her eyes and said, "I can't believe I used to be scared of you, you _dork_! Please, compliment me a lot."

Azula chose to compliment her during the play. At odd intervals, she leaned over to murmur:

"You're hot, Katara. Hotter than the melting point of liquid gold, a temperature that would scald the face off of unsuspecting Earth Kingdom soldiers."

"Ew." And yet Katara found herself laughing.

The next compliment was: "You make me hungry, hungrier than Ghan's dragon that once feasted on twenty men in one day."

"Dragons ate people?" she whispered back, horrified by the thought.

"Usually the scene was captured in a painting. I'll have to show you Ghan's painting in the Royal Palace."

"Thanks but no thanks."

Next: "Your fingers are graceful, Katara. As graceful as Princess Riza, who could decapitate men with one sword blow and still leave a thin strip of skin attaching the head to the throat."

Katara couldn't find the words to respond to that one.

The compliments were good…except when Azula drew a gory parallel, and those parallels became more and more elaborate and gruesome through the evening. After Azula somehow managed to compare her to evisceration, Katara wasn't sure she wanted to hear another one.

But then Azula leaned close and murmured, "I love you."

It was dizzying, hearing those words. Had that really just happened? They were in the theater, in public, watching a horrible play and…

Katara looked over in shock, but Azula was watching the play again, apparently unconcerned.

Every fear, every worry, every uncertainty was washed away. Azula loved her, and she cared enough to say it.

Azula had told her because it was the truth, not because she was fishing for a returned sentiment. It was incredibly unromantic…and romantic at the same time. Katara drew closer to lean her head on Azula's shoulder. She would return the sentiment—because she did love this goofball, awkward, silly, dorky girl—but she would wait until they were alone.

She could be romantic for the both of them. And now she could trust a little bit more.

* * *

Katara said, "Baby, look at me."

Azula didn't. She jerked against Katara's arms and her fingernails scored Katara's hips as she made a muffled noise that definitely meant she'd come. One foot tightened against Katara's calf, and Azula pulled her close everywhere, a heady sensation that went straight to Katara's ego. Katara enjoyed the spasms that clutched her fingers, and she continued her touches until Azula shook her head against her shoulder.

They settled on the pillows, regaining their breath and cooling down from their exertion. Katara expected Azula to reach for her after a moment, but Azula looked up at the ceiling and said, "I'm a baby now, am I?"

Oh, she'd said that, hadn't she? That was a little embarrassing. "It just slipped out."

"Mmhm," Azula replied dubiously. She glanced over at Katara, her face lit by gentle orange candle-light. Her hair was tousled, a little wavy after being up in a topknot all day, and it looked more brown than black. Katara loved it like this as much as when it was a curtain of straight black silk. Azula took another deep breath and looked at the ceiling. "Baby," she muttered.

"Well, you are. In bed, I mean." Maybe that wasn't the best way to put it, but Katara hadn't lost her need, and that didn't do much for her verbal filter.

Azula's lips pursed in an undeniably sexy expression. "Is this about hierarchy?"

Only Azula would have a complex about the fact that Katara liked to boss her around in bed sometimes. "I have no idea what 'this' is about. I called you 'baby' because I felt like it."

"It just 'slipped out'," Azula sneered. Maybe she was teasing, but sometimes it was hard to tell. Katara wasn't in the mood to figure it out tonight.

"Either you can deal with being called 'baby' or you can sleep alone."

Azula's mouth twisted, and she rolled over to hover over Katara. Her eyes were dark in this light, and she studied Katara soberly before lowering her head to kiss her. Those kisses escalated, and apparently that little crisis had been resolved. She expected Azula to be rough with her given the situation, but Azula's touch was especially gentle.

After Katara came back to Earth, Azula said, "Only in bed."

Katara's heart rate began to return to normal as she realized what Azula had said. "What?"

"I don't want to hear that term anywhere that someone else may hear it."

"What if we have sex in the bath?"

Azula groaned and rolled away. Katara didn't care. She pulled Azula against her and snuggled close, sleepy but resigned to the fact that Azula couldn't stand to sleep naked. (Not that Katara could blame her; the one time they'd done it, they'd woken up practically stuck to each other.) After a moment, Azula got up and tossed a silk robe her way. Katara pulled it on for fear of one of the house staff walking in to see her naked. Azula stepped into silk pants and belted her robe before she got back in bed.

"It just slipped out," Azula muttered. When she settled on her pillow, she reached out and curled her finger against Katara's.

Katara knew she was forgiven.


	6. Endearment

Summary: the first time Azula uses an endearment with Katara. Between Books 1 and 2.

* * *

The book in Katara's hand made her blush, especially the illustrations. Only the Fire Nation would have a manual for lesbian sex. Katara turned the book sideways to try to make out what that position was, but she had trouble seeing all the limbs involved, especially since there were three women in the picture. She looked up at Azula, who was probably reading about some old historical chronicle.

"This crazy manual just gets raunchier every page."

"It's not quite what I would consider literary climax, darling."

Azula didn't look up from her book as she spoke, but Katara had the benefit of looking right at Azula through her words. She watched Azula's face shift from indulgence to horror as she realized what she'd just said. Not only that, her cheeks flushed pink.

Katara closed the book and set it on the table next to her seat. There wasn't much that was funnier than this situation, and Katara couldn't hold in her laughter as she asked, "What did you just call me?"

"Nothing," Azula lied, her eyes firmly on her book now. Her face kept getting redder; she'd never blushed like this before.

"You called me darling," Katara wheedled. She'd wondered if Azula would ever use an endearment with her, and this was just perfect. All of her friends would have fainted if they'd heard Azula call her something so sweet. Azula's mouth twisted in a pout, and she remained silent. Katara got up, pulled Azula's book away, and leaned in her lap, trying to force Azula to meet her eyes. "It just slipped out, didn't it?"

Azula had, of course, made fun of Katara for the first endearment she'd used. She'd made fun of Katara's justification too: 'it just slipped out'. Azula, the hardhead, retorted, "At least I didn't use it in the throes of climax."

"You like it; don't even pretend you don't." Katara started to giggle, far enough removed from her own embarrassment to tease Azula mercilessly about this. "You love it, baby. That's why you just called me darling, which is so sweet, sweetheart."

"Don't call me that." Azula's glare could have frozen over the sun. It was a good bluff.

"'Baby' isn't so bad; is it, darling?"

"You're not amusing me."

"Oh, sweetie, please, I'm just trying to show my undying love."

Azula took a big breath and set her face in her hand. Katara sensed Azula was actually reaching the end of her temper and kissed her lightly before she went down to the beach to run through the new waterbending drills Pakku had given her. Katara kept thinking she'd reached the end of his lessons and he'd throw in another form or another technique. He must have died inside when he lied and told her she'd learned everything she could during the war.

By the time dinner rolled around, Azula was back in a better mood, and by the time they went to bed, Azula was amorous. When Azula reached for her, Katara grabbed her wrist. "Nope. Baby, you have to call me something sweet."

Azula actually huffed. She withdrew her hand and rolled so that her back faced Katara. They'd been together for a few years, and Katara knew a ruse when she saw one. She tried to hold in her laughter and didn't quite manage as she pressed kisses to Azula's neck. "Come on, baby. Just one word."

"One word for a fuck," Azula said snootily.

Katara rolled her eyes. "One word and we make love all night long."

"You exaggerate. I'm looking for half an hour of activity before an uninterrupted night's sleep.." Azula's jaw clenched. "I could seduce you if I wanted to."

Probably true. Katara could seduce her too though. She brushed her nose against Azula's ear. Her mind more on sexual teasing than bantering, and her voice reflected that. "You could try, baby."

"This isn't a mood-setter."

Katara sent her hands lower. Azula took a heavy breath in response to the touch. She swallowed.

"Don't make me wait long, baby," Katara murmured in her ear.

Azula took a breath, opened her mouth, closed it, and started again. This was a full-on pout. "You're really going to make me say it."

Katara hummed in agreement, gently easing open the front of Azula's sleeping robe. She massaged Azula's thigh and kissed her shoulder softly, more than aware that this was having the desired effect. This made her feel as powerful as winning a bending duel and so very sexy. Azula shifted restlessly, tangled her fingers in Katara's, and finally murmured, "Darling."

She was absolutely adorable, and Katara had to reward that, didn't she?

Of course Azula had her revenge. For the next week, she called Katara 'darling' at every turn until Katara was ready to be done with endearments forever. Katara got her revenge for that: she told Zuko. It was no wonder that the names stuck after they made fun of each other so much about them.


	7. Genetics

Azula enjoys a scholarly chat with Katara's grandmother post MES.

* * *

"How are you, Kanna?"

Kanna sighed. "Enjoying my stay, but starting to miss home."

She didn't have much longer to stay. Katara and Ana would be going back with her in a few short weeks. Azula was working at a breakneck pace to be sure she joined them only a few weeks later.

Azula poured herself a cup of tea and glanced over the railing to take in Rakka asleep in the strong sunlight of late morning in Ursa's garden. Ursa walked out of her apartment and folded her arms as she turned her head and tried to figure out a way around the dragon. When she turned to retreat back into her apartment, she looked up at the balcony and shot Azula a glare…as if Azula had anything to do with Rakka's sleeping habits.

Tonk leapt from a tree branch onto the balcony. She'd finally learned in the last few weeks that Rakka wasn't much of a threat, though Tonk's hunting had declined. A dragon apparently didn't increase the resident bird population of the palace.

The bearded cat trilled and jumped into Kanna's lap. She'd taken to sleeping on Kanna's bed too, the traitor. Kanna smiled and scratched Tonk's nape, immediately coaxing strong purrs. "What color is she?" Kanna asked.

It wasn't a silly question. Tonk was dappled black and orange in a dilute pattern that wasn't often found in bearded cats.

"Tortoise-shell," Azula replied. "I haven't a clue why breeders call that pattern such. If she were a dog, she would be considered a brindle."

"Is this a common color?"

"By and large that dual coloration is only found on female cats. Male cats tend to only be black or orange, but some females can carry both colors."

"I wonder why," Kanna said.

"Perhaps whatever trait that makes a cat female also coincides with carrying two colors. There are several theories."

Kanna sipped her tea and looked at Azula with surprising interest. "What are the theories?"

Azula was startled to be asked that. At this point in the conversation, Katara usually gave her a long-suffering sigh and tuned her out. "Are you truly interested or are you pretending to be polite?"

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know."

Fair enough. "Some biologists believe that there is a specific pattern to sex traits. They believe that all creatures carry two sex traits. The first is shared among all animals whether male or female. The second determines what gender the animal will be. One rather outrageous geneticist at the university in Ba Sing Se actually used bearded cats as his model. He suggests that because female cats can carry two colors, their two sex traits must be the same. He suggests that male bearded cats carry a different sex trait that makes them male, and that the trait cannot carry a color."

Kanna cocked her head. "Is there any way to prove this?"

"Not at this point. It has been a matter of interest for many years, though not necessarily about bearded cats. About a century ago, a man in Gaoling bred foxes for hunting. He bred the gentler foxes together and produced a line that was docile and easily domesticated to sell as pets. He noticed that that line, unlike any other fox he'd ever bred or seen, displayed piebaldism and curly tails…also the tendency to bark."

"What is piebaldism?" Kanna asked.

"It's a characteristic pattern of white along the muzzle and chest."

"Ah, like our dogs at the South Pole."

"Yes," Azula replied.

"So this man thought that the white fur was related to being docile?"

Azula smiled. She enjoyed that this woman was actually listening to her. "That's the thought. There's no way to prove it though."

Kanna rubbed the cat in her lap for a moment. "What about bending?"

"Bending? As a hereditary trait?"

"Yes," Kanna said.

This was not an off-the-cuff question. Azula sipped her tea as she considered how to answer. "I imagine we'll be seeing more people of different nations bending other elements in this peacetime."

"And your children?"

Azula met Kanna's eyes. "I will love my children whether they firebend, waterbend, or don't bend at all."

Kanna gave her a long look. "I know. But you must make sure they know that too."

"Yes," she said quietly. She realized her hand was on her abdomen. "They will know."


	8. South Pole gossip

Katara's friends at the South Pole like to gossip as much as Gran Gran's group. Between Books 1 and 2.

* * *

"So…"

Katara knew that particular tone of voice always preceded an inappropriate question or comment by Mina. She and Lia were always gigging about something sexual. According to Gran Gran, this would only get worse as they got older. It was pretty disturbing to imagine the elder women of the tribe talking about sex. Katara tried not to think about it—or about the fact that Gran Gran and Pakku probably—she stopped thinking about it. Katara carefully slipped another colored bead onto the leather braid she was making to give as a gift for the newest arrival of their village, a little girl she'd helped deliver the day before.

"What's it like to have sex with a firebender?"

The bead shot off of the end of Katara's needle and skittered across the pelt on the floor and under the tent flap. Katara's head jerked up and she looked at Mina in shock. Mina and Lia were staring at her with unnerving attention.

Her immediate, gut reaction was: "T-that's none of your business!"

They started to grin. Mina glanced at Lia. "Look at her face getting all red."

"Well, why not? Apparently her new lover is one hundred times better in bed than the Avatar."

Katara wanted to die. She hoped at some point she didn't feel like sinking through the earth was a better option than hearing about what she'd said in front of her family and friends. She felt sorry for Aang now that they'd both apologized to each other. He had to be as mortified as she was.

"Well, she _is_ a princess," Mina responded. It sounded like they'd rehearsed this conversation.

"And a firebender. My cousin from the North Pole says she slept with a firebender once. She said he was hot, physically—his skin and his…" Lia waggled her eyebrows. "And he took what he wanted—but he made sure she was pleasured the whole time. Three times in a night, and then twice in the morning. He used his mouth too."

"Please stop," Katara moaned.

"We'll stop. If you give us some information."

The two other girls were around Katara's age. They'd grown up together. Katara really did want to tell someone about her new surprising relationship with Azula, and this was better than the unhappy distrust Hakoda had been carrying around. She wanted her friends to at least know that Azula was a good person. And she was relieved and almost prideful to finally be able to talk about the pleasure of sex, instead of the awkwardness she'd held so close to her chest out of respect for Aang and fear that she was incapable of being a good sexual partner.

"She was shy," Katara said quietly. Mina and Lia leaned closer to listen to her. "But then, when we were together, she did things to me that… I didn't even know about."

"What things?" they asked with utter curiosity.

Katara blushed. "Her mouth," she mumbled, still shivering to remember Azula's beautiful lips between her legs. "The way she touched me and kissed me…I just never knew it could be like that. I'd completely lose myself. Sometimes she made me…come more than once. And she was so… She let me touch her any way I wanted. She made me feel so beautiful and strong, like I could make her feel so good."

Li and Mina raised their eyebrows and shot each other knowing looks.

"How many lovers has she had?" Lia asked.

That immediately got Katara's hackles up. "She hasn't! Azula said…that she read about it."

That apparently did not satisfy the juicy information they wanted. Mina actually looked at little disappointed. Lia, however, was surprised. "There are books about sex?"

"Apparently." Azula had promised to have one delivered to Ember Island so they could try a few things out. Katara was both mortified that Azula would actually ask someone to bring her a book about sex and anticipating exploring all these wonderful new things with Azula. It was like a whole new world had opened to her. Katara had already started planning her next trip.

"How does sex with a woman work anyway?"

"One hundred times better than sex with the Avatar," Mina said with a saucy laugh.

Katara put her face in her hands and groaned.


	9. Katara questions Azula about Omashu

Post-MES

* * *

Katara rubbed soothing circles on Azula's skin; each gentle touch reaffirmed that their baby was growing normally. "There's something I've wondered about for a long time."

"What's that?" Azula asked.

Sometimes she asked these questions, but this one had been nagging at her for a while. "At Omashu, you wouldn't trade Tom-Tom for Bumi. Why?"

Azula laughed quietly. "Do you want me to tell you I did it out of the goodness of my heart?"

"I just want to know why."

Azula met Katara's eyes with a smirk. "Let's review what I saw during that exchange: a boy and girl who were clearly from the Water Tribe which is notorious for its belief in the sanctity of family, and a child pretending to be an airbender—presumably by the tattoos—from a culture that believes in pacifism. First: would your motley group really be able to murder a baby? Second: would you really be able to take care of that baby while traveling to do whatever it was you were doing?"

Katara's lips twitched as she realized how transparent they'd been.

Azula continued airily, "And lo and behold, despite not trading Bumi for Tom-Tom, the child was returned to his parents not a day after the exchange was canceled, completely unharmed."

"What if you were wrong?" This was what Katara really wanted to know.

"I wasn't wrong," Azula said.

"What if you were?"

Azula's lips pinched, and Katara sensed she wouldn't like this answer as much. She didn't turn her sharp golden gaze away from Katara's eyes when she answered. She was devastatingly beautiful. "Do you want me to say I would have mourned Mai's little brother? I wouldn't have. It wasn't a fair trade, and the boy would have died protecting the Fire Nation."

And there was that alien part of Azula that was all Fire Nation. Never could Katara justify sacrificing a baby, a child, for any cause. Katara met her eyes and asked, "Could you make that choice now?"

Azula opened her mouth and closed it, and her expression shifted in shock. Against Katara's hand, the baby in her womb shifted. "Your attempts at humanizing me—"

Katara kissed her. She'd seen the truth of that answer in Azula's eyes: maybe she would, but she would hesitate. That was enough. "Okay." She kissed Azula again and admitted, "You _were_ right."

Azula relaxed in her arms. "I usually am."

"You know, ten years ago you would have said you're always right."

"It would be rather boring to be always right. Sometimes I like to try being wrong."

Katara poked her shoulder with a laugh. "You are so arrogant."

"It's not arrogance if I'm right." But as she said it, Azula's lips twitched.


	10. Korra meets Azula for the first time

A what-if scenario: How would Avatar Korra first meet Fire Lord Azula? (Notably, the extended family Korra mentions are from her mother's side.)

* * *

Korra is six when she meets Katara for the first time. She's old, maybe even older than Korra's granny, but she's a lot nicer than Granny. She gives a lot of hugs, and those are hard to get in the compound. Korra is bitterly disappointed when Katara begins to teach her waterbending; all of her instructors leave her as soon as she starts to like them.

Katara doesn't though. She keeps smiling and hugging, even if Korra has a bad lesson or talks back. Sometimes Katara leaves and doesn't come back for months, and those months feel like years. But she does come back. She promises several times she won't miss Korra's birthday. On that day, Korra is afraid that she won't be allowed to leave the compound to see her family, but they do let her go. Her father carries her on his shoulders as they go out on the shorefast ice to watch the baby seals.

He talks about their breeding, why they are hunted, what the consequences of their overhunting now are on the tribe. He speaks of penguins, how their blubber is used for oil worldwide now, and why they no longer allow humans to sled on their backs. "We must treat our prey carefully because they are our sustenance. They were put here for us to use but mostly to protect."

Senna has a happier lesson. They braid leather strips with beads, and she explains the colors and patterns. She teaches Korra two different knots too. Korra's braid is crooked, but Senna tells her she will treasure it always.

They share raw seal and sweet berries. The berries swiped inside the seal's open belly are delicious. Senna even prepares a batch of blood cakes for Korra. They're spongy, brassy, fatty, and wonderful. The White Lotus don't approve of uncooked food. A few of them don't even eat meat, which Korra still doesn't understand. They certainly don't eat blood and fat cooked in blood cakes.

She begged them to allow her one night at home with her parents, but her requests are denied. Instead, Korra's parents take her hands and they walk the long walk back to the compound. They aren't allowed inside, something that makes her dad's wide jaw jump, but they offer no protests as they kiss Korra and tell her they _will_ see her in a week. It feels like one of those times when they're talking to someone else instead of her.

Katara is waiting for her inside. Korra is bubbling to tell her how wonderful her day was and how wonderful her gifts are. Tonraq pulled out his key fiddle and played for hours, and Senna sang and danced with Korra around their hut. She has a new fishing hook waiting for her in their hut, and they both promised to take a full day to go out and ice fish next month. Katara listens with a smile and places a strong hand on her shoulder. "The day isn't over yet," she says.

The two of them eat dinner with the White Lotus's new firebending instructor. Korra doesn't like the man because he doesn't like her. He orders a spicy rice dish that burns Korra's mouth. It doesn't matter though; she's full of seal and blood cakes, and she knows he'll be gone in a few months.

"I don't like him," Korra tells Katara when he leaves for his private house in the compound.

"I don't either," Katara replies very seriously. "But you must respect him."

Jhao, the White Lotus leader, talks constantly about respect. For some reason he thinks Korra has none. Why should she care about her instructors when she knows they will leave?

Sometime in the night, Katara awakens her. She hands Korra her clothes, and they slip outside into the deep night. Korra is stunned when the White Lotus on guard, a smiling man who winks at her and gives her Fire Nation soft candies every time he sees her, says not a word when they walk out of the compound.

This is not allowed. This is breaking the number one rule: never ever leave the compound without permission.

Tonraq waits for them there. He's brought Uncle's sled and dog team, and the dogs grin at Korra as she and Katara sit in the basket of the sled. Tonraq snaps his whip and they begin a journey that Korra feels is otherworldly. The snow is pure white in the bright moonlight, and the sled moves so quickly over it. She has been on a dog sled only once, and riding at night is so much more interesting.

They ride past Korra's parents' town, but she sees her mother and even Granny waving as they pass. Katara holds Korra's waist so she can stand up and wave back. Eventually they reach a small town sitting on the edge of the ice. Korra has never been here. She's not sure where it is. The White Lotus have no maps of the South Pole even though they have so many of the other countries and continents. (Korra can't remember which one is which right now.)

Tonraq helps Katara out of the sled, and then he bends to pull Korra into a big hug. She loves his hugs. He kisses her—his face is rough against her own—and smiles when he withdraws. "Have fun," he says seriously. "I'll be here when you get back, my little pup."

"Where am I going?" Korra asks.

"I'll tell you when we're on our way," Katara replies. She seems uneasy for the moment, and Korra takes her hand. They walk out onto the ice-dock and are welcomed aboard a small metal ship. How do metal ships go anywhere without a sail?

The captain, an important looking woman, bows to Korra. Korra understands this greeting; she has to bow to all her instructors, but sometimes she gets the different bows mixed up. Usually they don't mind, but sometimes they do. The ones that mind usually don't stay long. Now Korra bows back. Tonraq waves to them from the dock before Korra even realizes the ship is moving. She and Katara stand and watch the shore slowly slip out of view. Korra yawns, but she's too excited to feel sleepy. She's never been anywhere before. She's never been on a ship before. Once her uncle took her out on an umak, but this is different.

"Where are we going?" she asks again.

Katara leads her across the deck and into the ship. They step into a room with a low table and bed. In the warmth of the room, they both remove their parkas. Katara fixes tea, and Korra drinks it. It's a kind that they keep on the compound, but it tastes better on an adventure.

"We're going to the Fire Nation," Katara finally tells her. "You will meet the Fire Lords, which is your duty as the Avatar."

Korra's eyes round. Her whole life she's heard about Fire Lord Azula and Fire Lord Zuko. She's learned about them during the war and after. She feels a bolt of excitement when she realizes what else she may see. "Will I meet Rakka and Tikkin?!"

Rakka, the first dragon, and Tikkin, her first daughter. Ridden by Azula and Zuko. Rakka is blue and white, and Tikkin is red.

For some reason, Katara begins to laugh. She nods. "I think that is quite likely."

"When will we get there?!" Korra is shaking with her excitement.

"In two days if the weather permits."

Two days will be eternity.

But they aren't. Katara lets her sleep as long as she wants the next day, which isn't very long. But then they explore the ship, meet all of the crew, and practice new waterbending forms. Katara teaches her something that she promises will be the basis of healing, and that excites Korra immensely. The White Lotus don't think waterbending is important because Korra's basic element is water, but she wants to learn about healing.

It is a busy day, and she falls asleep easily that night.

The next morning, Korra awakens to a new world. It's hot, even in the strange soft silk that Katara dresses her in. The sun is bright and hot as well, and there are so many different colors everywhere. When Korra looks from the deck of the ship to the city they dock against, she sees buildings all shining in the morning sun. The city climbs up a mountainside that Katara explains is the rim of a long-dead volcano.

This is Capital City.

A woman in silk and a man in earthbender green greet them. They bow low to Katara and then bow low to Korra. She returns their bows and doesn't know what to say when they ask her how the trip was. They smile as she stutters out an answer and goes silent.

They take a carriage, one drawn by a real ostrich horse. Katara only smiles and lets Korra hesitantly run a hand over the animal's snout. It's a lot more interesting than the few self-propelled carriages that toot horns and ride by their open carriage, or the bicycles that weave through the traffic.

Korra has never seen so many people.

There are all sorts of people: brown skin, light skin, black hair, brown hair, big, tall, fat, and skinny. The buildings are strange too: boxy with pointy edges and all made out of wood.

Korra thinks she has seen it all until they finally reach the top of the edge of the volcano. Now she is looking down into it, and it is full of buildings and people, more than she has ever even imagined could exist. It seems like the whole world is in this city. She stands up to stare at the giant building in the center: the palace. This is where one of the last battles of the war was fought.

That makes Korra stop. Katara fought in that battle. She has never connected the Katara in her history books with this Katara who is her teacher. Now Korra makes the connection and is even more overwhelmed.

"Oh, dear." Katara hugs her close and wipes her tears away. "It's all so exciting isn't it?"

It is, especially when she sees a dark dragon circle close to their carriage. The sun makes him look the dark blue color of her father's parka.

"That's Bogo," Katara says with a smile. "My wife thinks we should rename him, but Bogo isn't a bad name, is it?"

Korra likes the name. Bogo is a mischievous spirit that comes out to play during the dark winter months.

"He's a silly young boy. We think he'll choose my granddaughter, Ilah."

That's too confusing for Korra to understand. She's too busy watching the dragon to ask for clarification. He remains in sight as their carriage continues on into the great city. "Can I play with her?" Korra asks, desperate already at the thought of a child she can play with.

"I think so," Katara says with a gentle smile.

Korra feels like she will explode as the palace gates open slowly, but she is still awed by the two statues that stand on either side of the gates. One is a woman; one a man. They must be Azula and Zuko. The dragon, Bogo, flies overhead. He is waiting for them when their carriage rolls into the palace.

It's green here. There are trees and fountains and flowers and more vegetation than Korra has a name for. Bogo is a splash of blackish blue in that green. Korra wants to touch him so much. Katara takes her hand firmly as they step out of the carriage. They approach Bogo, who remains still as Korra puts her hand on his face. He's furry, and his eyes have a strange lid that folds up when Katara runs her knuckles over his brow.

Korra has never been happier than that moment, with the dragon's spicy breath flowing around her. He's beautiful. Katara touches her shoulder gently, and Korra turns around. There is a line of people, adults, who all bow to her. Korra doesn't know what to do, but Katara takes her hand and leads her gently through them to the great palace.

The palace is huge and pretty and dark. It's lit by fire, not electricity. The walls are tall, the halls are wide, and there are more pretty tapestries and decorations than Korra has ever seen. It feels rich and old.

None of that is anything when Katara turns them to face a tapestry. The man on it is huge and old and bald. There's fire all around him. His hand carries a curved sword.

"This is the first Fire Lord from the current family," Katara tells her. "He is Fire Lord Zuko and Fire Lord Azula's greaty-great grandfather."

Korra remembers that greaty-great means lots of greats were thrown in there. He lived a long time ago. "What's his name?"

"I don't know," Katara replies. For some reason, she smiles. "You should ask Fire Lord Azula. She can tell you the names and histories of all of these men and women."

They walk slowly along the line of tapestries. Korra stares at them. The first one that she recognizes is Sozin, and that's because of the comet that sweeps over his head. Next to him is a severe man with gray hair. Next to him is another man Korra can name: Ozai. Avatar Aang defeated Ozai. That sort of means she did, and she's afraid of the massive man standing on that wall. And then his son, Zuko, who has a scar even on his tapestry. But it's the next tapestry that makes Korra stop.

The woman on that tapestry is surrounded by blue. There's even blue under her feet. It's water! Water, like Korra's people. There's a big blue dragon wrapped around the woman. Rakka and Azula.

There is another tapestry beside Azula's. She wonders who that person is, but her eyes are stuck on Azula and Zuko.

Korra is going to meet them.

Katara takes her hand, and they continue through the palace. They stop in front of a set of closed doors guarded by two men in masks and red uniforms. The men salute and open the doors. There Katara releases Korra's hand. "Go," she says quietly. "Bow and introduce yourself."

Korra takes a hesitant few steps forward, and the doors close behind her. She hesitates before she walks down the room. It's a huge room with big round columns. At the end of the room is a raised platform that is outlined by fire: orange and blue.

Sitting on their shins on that stage are two people who are larger than life.

They're really old, which surprises Korra. They both wear big crests in their hair that look like the upper edge of a pineapple, a fruit one of Korra's earthbending instructors used to share with her before he was sent away. These two old people look alike, but one has a scar and the other doesn't.

Korra jumps when she sees two dragons coiled on that massive stage. Like the fire, they are orange and blue.

She feels their eyes on her and trembles as she bows. She bumbles with her hands and puts them flat against each other instead of a fist below a fist or a fist in a palm. "I'm pleased to meet you." Her voice sounds shrill and overly loud. "I'm Korra." Then she remembers who she is and adds, "The Avatar."

"Avatar Korra." The man with the scar, Zuko, speaks. His voice is surprisingly soft and smooth.

"It is an honor to receive you, Avatar Korra," says the woman, Azula. Her voice is hoarse but steady. Korra trembles as they stand up in unison. Zuko is a little bit taller than Azula, but they're both huge in her eyes, even when they step off of their shared fire stage and stand level with Korra.

They do something strange: they bow to her.

"What request does the Avatar have for us?" Zuko asks.

Korra trembles, looks back and forth between them, and she blurts, "Can I pet your dragons?!"

* * *

Katara sighed as Azula laughed. "She's only a little girl."

"Yes," Azula agreed, wiping her eyes. "She was overwhelmed at that time. She was fairly perplexed as to why an old Fire Lord was wearing a Water Tribe betrothal necklace. And…" Azula started laughing again. "She asked us, 'Why are you so _old_?'"

"How could she guess?" Katara asked bitterly. "The poor thing has no interaction with anyone but her parents once every few days and her instructors. She's already learned not to latch onto them because they're sent away after a year. I don't know what Tenzin is thinking!"

"White Lotus have already arrived at the docks." Azula sipped her tea with her lips pinched. "How can this girl be a normal person, much less the Avatar, if she's kept in a prison?"

It made Katara angry to even think of. This wasn't the first conversation they'd had about the issue, and at this point they only exacerbated each other's anger when they talked about it. Katara pulled Azula's hand into her lap and traced the veins and tendons on the back of it. It was an aged hand, but it was strong, just like Azula.

"She was so excited when she saw the grands," Azula said with a faint smile. "Has she ever played with children her own age?"

"Rarely. There are a few children in her village, but they're either too old or too young for her to really play with. And her parents rightfully want to monopolize what time they do have with her."

"I'm going to take her for a ride on Rakka."

"She could die of excitement." Katara threaded their fingers together. "Be careful, you old woman."

"I'm old, not stupid. We'll be in safety harnesses."

* * *

The days fly by. Korra is so exhausted at the end of the day, she sleeps hard in the soft bed in Fire Lord Azula and Katara's apartment. Even the thought of the two other children who share the apartment with them can't keep her awake. She plays all day with those kids. They explore the palace, find all sorts of secret passages, play tag, share firebending lessons, travel out of the palace grounds to eat at restaurants and visit other families, and do so many wonderful things that Korra thinks this is paradise.

She cries when she realizes it's her last day. It makes her feel a little better when Ilah, who is the girl closest to her age, promises to write to Korra. She's never written a letter before. It won't be the same as laughing and talking and playing with her, but Ilah says letter writing can be fun. Ilah says that Korra is her friend. Korra cries; it's the first time she's ever had a friend.

On her last day, Korra sees Azula firebend for the first time. She realizes why Azula's tapestry is so blue. She also realizes that she made a mistake when the Fire Lords told her she could make a request. She should have asked Fire Lord Azula if she will teach Korra firebending.

Korra wants to live here, play every day with the kids in the palace, and learn how to bend blue fire. Instead, she asked to pet their dragons.

The night before she and Katara will take a boat back to the South Pole, Korra cannot sleep. She creeps out of her dark room to find Fire Lord Azula and Katara sitting on the balcony, talking softly to each other. They're holding hands.

Azula notices her first. She sort of scares Korra, with her even expressions and rough voice, but Azula smiles at her now. "What is it, Korra?"

She wants to ask to live here, to be a part of this family, to have a dragon, to take Ilah back with her to the South Pole. But she's the Avatar, and Jhao has told her time and time again that she has a responsibility to the world. Korra bows deeply. "Will you please please please teach me firebending?"

Azula's smile has deepened when Korra lifts her head. Azula says, "It would be an honor to teach you, Korra."

It means a lot that Azula uses her name instead of her title then. Korra sniffles and bows. Returning to the South Pole isn't quite as bleak a thought.


	11. In which Katara becomes a midwife

Between Books 1 and 2

* * *

Katara rarely had contact with citizens of the Fire Nation aside from the royal family. On the few occasions that she could cajole Azula to go out and do something in public, they didn't really talk to anyone. It was just a bunch of ass-kissing that got old quickly. She was pretty surprised when the royal physician, a man she talked to all of twice, asked her if she commonly attended to women during childbirth.

She'd never particularly considered herself a midwife, not given all the other duties she had at home, but she realized her experience was probably as much as anyone could want. "I have a lot of experience, at least at the South Pole."

Ling regarded her with a steady gaze. "A friend of mine on Ember Island is looking for a waterbending midwife to aid him in an upcoming birth that's likely to be difficult. Unfortunately, there's a shortage of waterbending healers that have experience with birthing in the Fire Nation."

It wasn't exactly what Katara wanted to be doing on her vacation with Azula, but… "Sure. I'd be happy to help."

After a day of visiting with Zuko, a night sleeping in Azula's ever-empty bed in the palace, Katara was off to Ember Island full of anticipation of seeing her again. Not just anticipation; it was need too. Katara missed Azula so much. She almost forgot in the whirl that was the first few days of pretty much staying in bed with Azula.

She and Azula were playing around in the ocean one morning. Azula pretended to be stern about not doing her normal circuit swim. "We've both had more exercise than we can deal with," Katara asserted.

"True," Azula replied, floating lazily until she had to duck under a breaker.

Katara pulled her close when she resurfaced, and they kissed through the taste of the brine of seawater. "Breakfast?" she asked, aware by now that Azula had specific times for specific things, and one of those things was eating.

And so they walked back up to the house, sandy and salty.

A strange man accompanied Azula's majordomo in the study. He bowed low as they walked into the house. By the flush of his face, he was embarrassed to see them so casual. "Who are you?" Azula asked him flatly, ignoring her staff.

"Princess, it's a great honor. I'm Doctor Tam. I came to speak with Lady Katara."

Azula glanced at Katara briefly before walking out of the room without a word. Katara wasn't sure what that look was about. She glanced at Tam. "Are you Ling's friend?"

"I'm a former apprentice," Tam said.

"Do you have time to wait for me to get dressed? We're going to have breakfast after that."

He lowered his head. "Certainly, Lady Katara."

"Call me Katara, please."

Kota had already scrubbed Azula's back when Katara joined them in the bathing chambers. She hesitated, like always, until Kota left the bathing chamber quietly. It still pissed Katara off a little bit that Kota regularly touched Azula like that.

"Who's your friend?" Azula asked. Contrary to what Katara was afraid of, she didn't seem upset. Katara ignored the sarcastic note of Azula's term 'friend'.

"Ling asked me if I'd help him—Tam—with a difficult birth while I'm here."

"You're going to?"

"If I can help, then sure. I'd hate to refuse and then something go wrong."

Azula gave her a steady, judging glance before she obliged Katara's request to dump a bucket of water over her head to rinse her. "I asked him to stay for breakfast with us."

Azula sighed. "Lovely," she said in a tone that indicated the opposite.

The whole situation made Katara ask a question she already knew the answer to. "Do you want kids?"

"Few things terrifying me," Azula responded as she climbed in the bath. "One of those things is carrying a parasite in my womb for the better part of a year. The other is forcing that parasite from an area of my body I'm rather fond of."

"It shrinks back," Katara said with a laugh. "I don't think most women go through pregnancy and childbirth for their own sakes. They do it for the baby."

"That makes even less sense. All that pain for a little creature that screams until it takes nutrients from a woman's breast and then repays all that care by spewing bodily fluids from all orifices."

Katara burst into laughter at that description, even if part of her was disappointed. She wasn't surprised, but she had hoped a little that Azula would feel differently. Maybe she would change her mind if she actually interacted with a baby. There was nothing quite like holding a newborn child in her arms and listening for its gusty cry. Or watching the baby nurse for the first time and the look of gentle love on the new mother's face.

For all's sakes, Azula loved a bearded cat. How could she not love a human baby?

* * *

Katara went out with Tam once they finished their stilted breakfast. She still smarted from how Azula ignored everyone during breakfast and read silently at the table. Tam hesitantly made conversation with Katara until they picked up on their mutual experiences of medicine and birthing.

Katara pointedly didn't ask Azula's input when she agreed to accompany Tam to their prospective client. It was a big house—grander than Azula's but inland on a less desirable piece of property. Katara glanced around at the interior, hoping she hid her distaste of the gaudy decorations. She wondered if those decorations signified a less than polite view of the color of her eyes.

The servant that showed them into the house was polite, however. After a moment, he ushered them back through the house to an airy porch. There a light breeze carried across the slim wooden furniture, and the lady of the house sat waiting for them there quietly. She was a pale woman, and her smile seemed weak.

"Lady Han." Tam bowed low. Katara copied him only in her bow, but she simply lowered her head and shoulders in polite recline.

"This is Lady Katara, a renowned waterbender who has some experience assisting with childbirth."

"You're a waterbender healer?"

The 'renowned' part made her a little uncomfortable. "Yes. Tam mentioned to me that you're interested in my skills."

Han nodded. "I am. What is your fee?"

Katara was startled. She hadn't even considered being paid. "You don't—"

"Three hundred gold pieces is her standard fee," Tam said quickly.

The lady nodded. "Of course. It will be delivered to you by the end of the week." She took a sip of tea and sighed. "I carried a child to term before, but the childbirth… My husband chose my life over our son's." Her face shifted in brittle emotion. "We never planned to try again, but not all things are planned in life. I want everything possible to be done to bring this little one into this world safely."

Katara forgot about her anger over Tam's audacity and slipped to her knees beside Lady Han. She reached out and placed her hand over the woman's abdomen. The baby was strong—likely a boy, though she was still working on her pre-birth gender identification. She focused her sense and slowly worked through the lady's chi and her body.

Afterwards, the three of them discussed the best regimen for Lady Han's remaining days of pregnancy. They would check in once weekly unless a problem came up, and Katara would likely still be on the island when Lady Han went into labor.

It was only when they were in the carriage on the way back that Katara expressed her irritation with Tam's asking fee.

He was surprised. "You should value your services, Lady Katara. If these women think they can hire you without a fee, they may consider your services that of a servant. I was led to believe you're a professional.

"It's for the health and well-being of people, but healing is a skill and a profession. You may not need the money for an income now, but you should foster your profession and your reputation so you can use it if you do need it."

It was only that night, lying in bed beside Azula that Katara realized what he meant. He didn't think she and Azula would stay together. And that she was mooching off of Azula. Which, Katara realized, was kind of true. Azula's money paid for her clothing, her food, their entertainment, and all the supplies that Azula sent home with her.

"Oh," she said, disliking how this realization made her feel.

"Hm?" Azula lowered her book and turned her head. "What?"

"Nothing. Just thinking."

Azula set her book down entirely and blew out the lamp. She settled onto the pillows and sighed, a noise she made exclusively when she turned her mind off for the night.

"Do I cost a lot of money?"

Azula sat partly up. "What?"

"Feeding me."

Azula sighed deeply; this one expressed annoyance. "For Agni's sake. No. Go to sleep."

"How do you pay for all of this? Is it the crown's money?"

"Of course not. I make money."

"But you don't do anything."

"I _invest_ ," said as if Katara had insulted her. "I want you here. I love you. Don't insult me by proposing you must pay some sort of allowance."

"Oh. Okay."

Azula settled again, giving her pre-sleep sigh.

"I love you too," Katara thought to say.

"Good night," Azula retorted firmly.

For that, Katara snuggled up and kissed her shoulder.

* * *

Lady Han did very well through the following weeks, but Katara was roused by Kota late one night. Azula sat up with a gasp, but Katara pushed her back. "Go back to sleep. It's for me."

"What's wrong?"

"The lady is having her baby. I'll be back soon."

'Soon' turned out to be an exaggeration. Lady Han had contacted Tam and Katara at the first stirrings of contractions. It took her another day to be fully dilated. It was a trial to keep the lady from pushing, but they managed. Despite Lady Han's extreme exhaustion, when they told her to push, she did.

Katara had to gently reach inside the woman to reposition the baby's head, but at the next contraction, out came a healthy baby boy. Lady Han stared at her son as if she didn't believe he was real. His lusty bawls drew a slow, wide smile to his father's face. When he—cleaned and checked over—latched to Lady Han's breast, she began to weep.

"He's healthy?" she asked.

"Yes," Katara assured her. "Healthy."

Lady Han reached out and pulled Katara against her shoulder in a hard embrace. "Thank you," she whispered over and over.

All Katara wanted to do was take a bath and fall into bed, but she stayed another hour to help the lady deliver her placenta. She checked the placenta and talked to Tam about making sure it wasn't torn and there were no pieces remaining. Then she gently examined Lady Han and her child once more. They were both doing well; it was time for Katara and Tam to go.

Lord Han, an older man gaining fat around his middle, bowed deeply to Katara and Tam as they left. "Thank you for this gift."

On the carriage ride back to Azula's estate, Tam admitted, "I could not have done that alone."

"You need patience," Katara replied. "It wasn't a hard birth, just long. The baby fit through her canal, and he was positioned nearly right. He just needed a little help, and she needed to be told not to push too soon or she'd have torn herself."

"Thank you," Tam said quietly. "I was the doctor that saw to her first birth, and I'm afraid it went badly because of my own inexperience."

"Or they both might have died if you weren't there. If you ever need to ask me anything, I'll be happy to help," Katara told him.

"Thank you."

Finally, after a quick, wonderful bath, Katara slipped into bed. Azula stirred and rolled over, draping an arm over Katara's waist. Katara smoothed her fingertips over the soft skin on Azula's arm. If Azula had seen that little boy today, she might think of children differently. Though perhaps not about the birthing process.

"Did it go well?"

"I'm sorry I woke you."

"I wasn't asleep."

"It went well. Lord and Lady Han have a healthy baby boy to raise."

Azula rubbed Katara's stomach gently. "Go to sleep."

"I was," Katara mumbled, irritated at the command. The last thing she was aware of was Azula's irritated huff against her neck.


	12. Zuko

Spans Book 1 to 3: Truly snapshots of Zuko's POV through MES.

* * *

When Mai spoke, Zuko was surprised she was still awake. He liked to lie awake at night and just talk into their silence, reasoning out his day or life or anything that was bothering him. It was great for Mai, who seemed to find his voice as powerful a narcotic as opium.

Tonight, halfway through his diatribe about Azula, Mai sat up sharply in bed.

"Are you okay?" he asked, for the moment thinking she was sleepwalking. That hadn't happened before; she only tended to snore when she was really tired.

"Let me get this straight, Zuko: you constantly bitch and whine about Azula not accepting Iroh has her father, but what you really want is for them never to be close."

Wow, she actually sounded angry. "That's not true—"

"Yes it is. You whine that only reason he came to the Fire Nation was for her, and you're the one who's benefiting from that in the first place. He's here, doing whatever it is that fat retired generals do, and he's doing a lot of that with you every day."

"But he—"

"Shut up and listen to me. All I ever hear when I'm around you is about how sucky your family life is. Guess what I see: a mother who loves you, an uncle who wishes he were your father, and a sister who tolerates you. Big fucking whoop. It must be _so_ hard to be Zuko, surrounded by people who love him."

"I've had plenty of hard family life too!" Zuko snapped, his anger rising in self-defense.

"You're not the only person in the world who's had your dad slap you around. Do you really think Azula didn't get smacked around by Ozai? She did, almost every day. So stop it with the woe-is-me bullshit. Ozai burned your face and sent you away with a man who loved you to wander the world for years. Such a hard life." Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

Zuko couldn't believe this. "Are you taking her side?"

"You need to stop being so pig-headed." Mai's sharp nail pricked his chest as she tapped him there. Her eyes were nearly back in the darkness. "Do you really think Azula wants Iroh to be her dad? How would you feel if someone told you Ursa wasn't your mother?"

Zuko leaned back against the headboard of the bed, relaxing slowly as he stared at Mai. "Are you still loyal to her?"

Mai shrugged. "She's my still my princess. And I'm really getting tired of only hearing you talk about how much your life sucks. Deal with it."

And just like that, she snuggled back up to his chest and started to snore less than five minutes later.

* * *

"You did this on purpose!" Ursa snapped, stomping out onto the balcony.

Zuko sloshed wine on his robes, feeling like a little kid in the face of his mother's anger. "What did I do?"

"You sent that water tribe girl to Azula, and she's seduced her!"

Iroh exhaled a batch of tea, Mai actually dropped her cup, and Zuko's wine spilled fully on his robes. He lurched to his feet to yank off his outer robe, throwing it off and wondering why he hadn't done it earlier. Ursa had said 'seduced', which probably was a figurative use of the word. "What did Katara do, exactly?"

"They're _sleeping together_ ," Ursa said, her cheeks pink. "Your sister is completely bewitched by that girl; it's completely inappropriate, completely ruining her reputation!"

Mai started to laugh harder than Zuko had ever witnessed. "Ty Lee was right!"

"Azula's a _lesbian_?!" he gasped. Then he thought about it again. " _Katara_ and _Azula_ are—they're—but—I don't understand."

"Well, well," Iroh murmured, having wiped his beard dry. "This is an interesting development."

"They're having _sex_?" Zuko finally managed to ask.

"Yes, they're having sex," Ursa snapped. "And it's your fault!"

Zuko stared at his mother. "I... What?"

* * *

Zuko contemplated the hem of his robes as he walked into his office. When he lifted his head, he jerked back in shock, taking a defensive stance before he could even think about it. Azula was sitting at his desk, flipping through a few documents calmly. She looked up at him and rolled her eyes in the height of condescension.

"What are you doing here?"

"Our mother made a few threats." Azula set the scroll down. "This is alarming, Zuko."

"What?" he asked, a chill running down his spine despite himself. Azula was probably just screwing around, but he couldn't help the reaction. Which, he realized with another shiver of unease, meant he trusted her to some extent.

"A man named Yun is a corporal in charge of the set of naval ships patrolling our colonies in western Earth Kingdom."

"They aren't our colonies anymore."

"We protect them from the pirates that are rampant along the way, so yes, they're still ours. They just don't pay taxes for said protection," Azula retorted.

It wasn't worth the argument. "What's wrong with Yun?"

"He's in Suzo's pocket."

"Suzo?" Zuko asked, his mind trying to sort the name out. The name was familiar, but he'd been juggling so many family names for so many months he couldn't entirely place it.

Azula leaned back, flapping the sheet of paper in her hand. "Suzo, who has a great deal to gain now that his rival, Lam, has been removed from his position as the private company that protected the said colonies and transported said colonies' merchandise ships."

Zuko opened his mouth to point out there was nothing related, and he looked back at Azula. Lam's small merchant fleet had been basically demolished by pirates, taking with it some of his men, some colonial civilians, and all of its cargo. Suzo, he realized, was all of a week away from being approved to take over Lam's position. Suzo, who owned a man that controlled the Fire Nation navy in that area of the seas. "Are you insinuating that Yun was paid by Suzo to allow in enemy forces to attack the ships moving in and out of the port, so that Lam would be forced out?"

"And now Suzo has submitted an application for taking his men and his ships to fill the void that now exists."

Zuko felt a shiver of fear. He knew a lot, a lot more than he'd known when he started those years ago, but there was still so much more than went on under the surface. He stared at the sheet. "What should I do?"

"Find someone else. Someone cheaper. Someone who you want to owe you a favor. Most importantly, get rid of Yun posthaste. Promote him—"

" _Promote_ him? You just said—"

"To a desk position somewhere far away from anywhere he can make any changes. Promote him to a position that's a dead-end so he can never again _be_ promoted."

It was a neat and quiet…efficient. Like the lie that had almost made him board the ship to the Fire Nation during the war, like the fall of Ba Sing Se, like the plan during the eclipse. Very Azula. Unlike those other things, Zuko didn't know the why of this generosity. Zuko watched his sister for a long moment.

Azula slowly raised her eyes. "What?"

"Why do you care? Why tell me this?"

"I wouldn't put it past Suzo to stage a faux rebellion, slaughter civilians, and incite a nice little conflict on the coast. We can't afford that financially or in the eyes of the international market. It's messy."

"Most of the people who live in those cities are Earth Kingdomers. You wanted all those people to burn just a few years ago." He didn't know what he wanted her to say or do, but he pushed anyway. He wanted some sort of answer to make sense of what it was that Azula wanted.

"It was war, Brother," Azula replied sharply. "They were enemies in that war. Now there's no war, and they aren't our enemies. What's the point of spending our money on them and not protecting them?"

"How can you just turn it off like that? They're the same people whether we're fighting them or protecting them."

Azula rolled her eyes and stood up. "No wonder all the world leaders are slobbering over peace. You never had the stomach for war."

"What would you have done if you'd won?"

Azula stopped beside him, her back rigid, her gaze straight ahead. Her hair was still short, barely past her shoulders, but the lines of her face were very much their mother. That didn't sting as much as it used to.

"Won what?" she asked quietly.

"If you'd won the war."

She remained silent for a long time. "If Sozin's Comet hadn't come to pass, I would have declared Agni Kai against Father, killed him, ascended the throne, and launched a war of attrition on the Earth Kingdom. I would have brought them famine, plague, and death more than they would have ever known. I would have broken their spirit. The North would have fallen soon after." She glanced at him. "And then there would have been no more war."

For a long time after she left, he pondered those words. Zuko sat at his desk, and instead of the thousands of things he needed to do, he stared out of his balcony and turned those words over and over again. _"And then there would have been no more war."_

Shit. There was no way.

Ozai had fought the war for blood and his own personal glory. And Zuko's sister, who was just as ruthless, cruel, and evil as Ozai, just claimed she would have won the war for peace.

Iroh had always taught Zuko perspective: see things from more than one angle. But now Zuko saw biases in Iroh's perspective. He'd never cared to explain why anyone would want to fight a war like the Hundred Year War. Wars had been waged for as long as men could travel far enough to meet each other. Sozin launched the war for the glory of the Fire Nation. Azula apparently would have ended it to glorify the entire world in her way.

She was wrong, but… She was his little sister, and it was becoming a little bit easier to think of her that way.

* * *

Zuko hunkered down against his balcony railing, staying silent to overhear the strangest conversation he'd ever eavesdropped on. Mai quietly exited their shared apartment, and stared down at him dubiously. He quickly made a 'hush' gesture before she could voice her obvious question, and motioned for her to sit next to him.

Mai opened her mouth and closed it when laughter came up from the gardens.

It was Katara's voice, too low to make out words. Then more laughter. Mai raised an eyebrow at Zuko, but she remained where she was.

"Mai put in a new bed in my apartment," Azula said suddenly. "Though it is a nice bed, so I suppose I can forgive it."

Zuko turned his head at the silence, and his jaw dropped to see Katara and Azula actually kissing. Gross. And weird. Katara was sitting in Azula's lap, and she leaned her head against Azula's shoulder. And Azula… Her expression was soft and open, tender, which was the weirdest fucking thing Zuko had ever seen.

"We should try out that new bed," Katara said, sitting up.

Azula followed her inside, and the last thing they heard was, "If it breaks, I can have my old bed back."

"Everyone wins."

"Well," Mai said. "Thank you for forcing me to listen to that. I need to go scrub my ears and eyes with lye water."

"That was really weird, right?" he asked as he followed her inside.

"You eavesdropping on your sister and her lover? Yes."

"No. _Them_. I've never seen Azula look like that."

"You aren't her lover, are you?" Mai asked. She sighed and slipped an arm around his neck, pulling him close to kiss his mouth. "I hope you don't look at her the way you look at me." She tossed him a saucy look as she turned on one heel and walked into their bedroom.

Well, hard to resist that. He hastened to follow.

* * *

Trust Azula to turn a coup attempt into a game. Zuko had thought it was a good way to occupy her boundless energy… At least until Azula was attacked in the streets. His men couldn't give him a satisfactory answer as to the identity of the attackers, and he found himself losing sleep over it.

"You and your sister are so stupid," Mai told him one morning after a particularly fitful night. "Just arrest them and be done with it."

"I can't do that."

"What you mean is you don't want to do that."

It was true, as stupid as that made him feel. Azula would tell him if she felt in danger. Of course, this was the same girl who fell off of a war balloon and caught herself on the rocks with her hairpiece. His conscience prickled at that particular thought. Azula was so self-confident she didn't see danger where danger lurked.

Whatever guilt and worry he felt through the weeks before his wedding were erased when he witnessed a handful of Dai Li agents burst from the ground at his wedding. _Dai Li!_ It was going to put their relationship back with the Earth Kingdom years. She'd never said a word about contacting them, or dragon forbid, keeping them under her employ since the war.

And then Azula had the audacity to accept an agni kai challenge. Whatever situation he thought he had a handle on was rapidly spinning out of control. Azula did what Azula had always done: take over and get shit done. Despite that, he almost doubted her, especially after Iroh told him the truth about Azula's bending.

Zuko should have known better. Azula killed her opponent in seconds, and he could only shake his head. He wouldn't have done any better being able to firebend. Trust Azula to go above and beyond.

Maybe he could set aside a few weeks to travel with his sister to see the Sun Warriors. That ought to fix her right up. Zuko was crazy for even considering it, but he wanted that for her. Maybe after his private wedding...

* * *

"It's not your fault."

Zuko took another sip of fire whiskey and sighed, watching dully as the gray of morning shifted into dawn.

"Zuko."

Mai's voice held real worry.

"You were more helpful than I was. All I could do was just…" He shook his head and looked at his hands. There was still blood caked under his fingernails nearly a week later.

Mai's hand slipped around his neck, and she bent to kiss the side of his face before pulling him into a loose hug. "She'll survive this."

"Our father." He laughed bitterly and shook his head. " _My_ father. He did this to her."

"You're not like him."

"I'm her big brother. I'm supposed to protect her, and all I've done is let her get hurt."

Mai's grip tightened, and she laughed bitterly. "Do you really think Azula would take your supposed protection? She's lived her entire life protecting herself. She doesn't know any better. All of this was her making."

"I told her to—"

"Like she would have stopped if you told her 'no'!"

It gave him pause, and Mai smiled at him gently for it. "Don't feel guilty for a situation that was her own doing. Azula will rise from this just as strong as she was before. She's that annoying indestructible."

"Who did she get that from?" he wondered.

"Iroh obviously."

Zuko laughed abruptly. He leaned his head on Mai's shoulder and sighed.

"Come to bed. Sleep for a little while, and then we'll go see her again."

He nodded, got up, and let his wife take care of him.

* * *

 _-5 years later-_

"Excuse me, Fire Lord."

Zuko glanced up from trying and failing to entice Rina to eat carrots. He'd eaten more on her plate than she had at this point. Zuko's bodyservant bowed with a letter in his hand. They were in a restaurant in the noble district, and this was a time when politics was not allowed. Mai wasn't a strict about it as his mom, but he didn't like to interrupt his time with his kids. "I'll read it later."

"Fire Lord, it's a letter from your sister."

Zuko hesitated. He glanced at Mai, who pointedly did not offer an opinion. He took the scroll. It wasn't sealed with Azula's snooty dragon seal. It had been opened already too. This was all a little weird. Zuko unrolled it. Well, why not; this was technically family. "Kids, you want to hear what your aunt wrote?"

"Auntie Azula!" Tozin said with a grin. Rina used this as an excuse to push her plate away.

Mai heaved a sigh, but she smiled and placed a kiss on Tozin's dark head.

Zuko cleared his throat and pitched his voice high in his best Azula impression:

"'Most prestigious and powerful Fire Lord Zuko.'"

Rina giggled.

"'Greetings and salutations from the cold shores of the South Pole, et cetera ad nauseam.'"

"Did she really write that?" Mai asked.

"Yes. 'As much as I…love writing to my…awesome, favorite big brother during my vacation, I thought I should send word of my news.'"

Zuko read the next sentence silently without surprise. "Well, we expected…" He frowned when he read the second sentence. "Okay, weird. Azula and Katara got married. And apparently Katara adopted a kid." He sighed when he read the rest of the paragraph. Of course Azula would teach her new kid to call him a poopy head. He wasn't reading that aloud in front of his kids. They'd drop 'Daddy' in a heartbeat to call him that.

He continued reading the next paragraph. "'I've had many interesting experiences in the South Pole. We'll be returning at some point in the next few weeks. I do require one favor. Would you outlaw…'" His voice trailed off as he tried to figure out why exactly Azula had written that statement.

"What?" Mai actually looked curious now.

"'Would you outlaw dragon hunting?'"

Zuko glanced up at Mai, who shrugged. "Don't look at me. Your sister is nuts."

"Nuts!" Rina gasped.

"Yep, nuts." Zuko reached out to pick up a peanut from Mai's plate and put it on Rina's. "Don't they taste great?!"

She turned away with her nose up.

Zuko knew when to admit defeat. He reached out to sip his tea and saw there was print below Azula's flamboyant signature. He read it.

Zuko exhaled, and his mouthful of tea sprayed across the table. Mai's expression went tight as she wordlessly reached out to take his napkin and wipe her face off. Even the children understood the danger of that moment; they watched their mother with wide eyes. Zuko attempted to apologize even as he coughed up the tea he'd inhaled, but she lifted a finger in sharp warning to be quiet. Then she reached out and took the letter from him.

Mai stared at the letter in her hand, and her expression of anger melted into simple shock. "'Postscript: I can firebend again. Post-postscript: I tamed a dragon too.'"

* * *

In bed, Mai shifted around with her mountain of pillows until she had her usual barrier on either side. Thankfully their bed was huge or Zuko would be sleeping on the floor. "What are you going to do?" she asked.

A dragon. If it was true, this was the out he needed. Azula would want the throne now that she could firebend. And with a dragon, the Fire Nation would welcome her with open arms. He could pack up and leave, say goodbye to the long hours, the headaches, and the annoying noble drama. He could go to Republic City and watch it start from the ground up. Aang needed him there, and he could own something entirely new.

It still hurt to think of letting his nation go.

"I'm going to give it to her." He didn't sound as certain as he meant to.

"Are you sure?" she asked him without a hint of censure or doubt. He loved her just for that. She wouldn't care if he was a Fire Lord or a tea shop assistant as long as he loved her, loved their kids, and maintained a comfortable household for them all. So he didn't care if she wanted a part of the Fire Nation or not.

When he'd started dating her during the war, he never imagined they'd end up the way they were now. Even if there was a mound of pillows between them. Zuko reached out to snitch one, and Mai made a noise that meant, 'Do it and die.'

"Just one," he wheedled.

"Fine," she muttered with a long-suffering sigh.

Mai really did love him.

"Do you trust her?" Mai asked after a few minutes of quiet.

Trust his sister? Trust Azula?

The answer of that was a firm yes. During the war, he would have battened down the hatches and brought all of his guards to the capital for protection. Now he knew Azula wasn't a threat, at least in the traditional sense. He didn't know quite how his trust had formed; it was probably all of those stupid hugs they'd suffered for their mother's sake. Or maybe having to defend her from the few attempts to 'try' Azula for her actions in Ba Sing Se. One of those meetings was the only one Ursa ever sat in, and she'd completely cowed the usually unflappable Ba Sing Se reps. King Bumi's representative shrugged when they turned to him for support. "King Bumi likes her," he'd said. That was the end of the matter.

It still made Zuko smirk. If Ursa had been Fire Lady at any point in her life, she would have walked all over the Fire Nation.

Maybe he trusted Azula because he'd learned to work with her the last few years. Who the hell would have guessed they turn into a functional family?

"If she wanted to kill me, she wouldn't have written me in the first place."

"She could still kill you."

"Thanks," Zuko muttered. It still hurt his pride a little bit that his little sister was better than him at pretty much everything.

"She always could," Mai admitted. She said it to be supportive, as contrary as it sounded.

"I trust her," Zuko said truthfully. "And I trust her with the Fire Nation."

"As long as Katara's around, Azula's a sack of putty anyway," Mai muttered. "I can't believe she just adopted a kid out of nowhere like that."

"You know, she still hasn't thanked me." It wasn't the first time he'd said it. Mai was quiet. "I guess I'll just point it out at their wedding. 'You're welcome for introducing you.' Well…introducing you a second time, after the war ended. So that you two could realize your undying love for each other. I still don't know how they work as a couple. Did they just look at each other and decide to be girlfriends? Did you guess it would happen?"

Mai answered with a soft snore.

Zuko smiled in the darkness. He'd figure it out in the morning.

* * *

He was most afraid of what Iroh would say, but when Zuko looked at his uncle, he saw no disappointment.

"Are you disappointed?" he asked anyway.

Iroh sighed and slowed his walk. He rubbed his beard. "I'm not disappointed. I worry that you're doing this for the wrong reason."

"This is what I want."

"Is it?" Iroh asked him quietly. "I worry you'll have regrets."

"You don't think Azula's going to do a bad job, do you?"

Iroh shook his head. "No. But I'm not so certain she'll accept."

He had to be kidding. That had to be some sort of crazy joke. Of course Azula would accept. Iroh read his doubt and continued, "She wants different things now, Zuko. Just like you do."

* * *

It took a full week after Azula had returned to the Fire Nation before he had all the details ironed out…well, the details he had to have ironed out done. There were still a million others that Azula could take care of. Zuko was surprised every time they met that Azula didn't broach the topic herself. She obviously knew what was going on. The fact that she seemed unwilling to ask him made Zuko wonder if she was going to decline.

That was why he waited until the tapestry was finished to ask her.

Hook, line, and sinker.

Azula looked up at her tapestry expressionlessly. Then she smiled and laughed. She looked at Zuko and said, "No."

She'd just looked at her Fire Lord tapestry and said no. Zuko gaped at her, stunned beyond belief by that answer. Were they going to be the first two royal siblings to fight over who got to _not_ be Fire Lord?

"What?"

"And yes."

She'd just said no and then yes.

Zuko groaned, his feelings fluctuating between disappointment and relief. He put his face in his hands. "Why are you always such a headache? What do you want? Yes or no."

"I want both. Just like you do," she said calmly. She met his eyes. "Shall we compromise?"

He wanted to cry. Why didn't she talk like a normal person? "What are you talking about?"

Of course Azula continued her thought without explaining herself. "It will take good communication between us. And compromise every day. But we if do it right, we both get what we want. You can go play around with Republic City. I can be with Katara when she goes home with our children. And we can both do our duties for our nation without fail."

Zuko's brain stopped. He was positive she'd just broken him with that word. Was that a scar on her ear? "Children?" And then he realized what she wanted. His jaw dropped. "You mean we'd both be Fire Lord."

"Ding, ding ding!" she sneered. Azula finished that off with a roll of her eyes. "That took longer than I expected."

It wasn't worth taking offense to. Zuko was also too busy being flummoxed to respond in that way. "But…we'd kill each other. We can't both have veto power, and law making would be impossible—"

"As I said," Azula replied. "It will take a great deal of compromise and communication. I would suggest at least for now that we spearhead our own causes separately. You'll need to be very nice to the Earth Kingdom ambassadors to be sure they don't do something silly when they find out about my new title. When we do travel, we'll have to leave specific instructions behind. We'll pay a fortune in postage, of course, but—"

Azula was a genius. She was a fucking genius. It was so simple, but it had never been done before so he hadn't even thought about it. Azula had probably not even considered they would be the first true coregency ever in the Fire Nation. But what did Azula care? She thought she could do anything. And right then, Zuko thought he could too.

"Yes," Zuko said. He grinned and a weight shifted from his shoulders. "Yes, I'll do it."

He held out his hand.

Azula raised her eyebrows. "You aren't going to spit in your palm like a hoodlum, are you?"

"That would be fuddy-duddy, wouldn't it?" he retorted, amused by the stupid-sounding words she always used.

Azula looked at him like he was an idiot. "Do you have any idea what that word actually means?"

He stared at his sister. "That's a real word?"

She was highly insulted by that. "Of course it's a real word. Do you think I walk around and speak gibberish? It means old-fashioned."

"Why don't you just say old-fashioned then?!"

"Some of us have vocabularies that extend beyond three tired words."

Zuko groaned in frustration. Azula rolled her eyes and put her hand in his. They shook firmly.

"Fire Lord Zuko," she said.

"Fire Lord Azula," he replied and then grumbled, "Poopy head."

"Dumb-dumb."

This was going to work.


	13. Recovery

During and after the Epilogue of Book 2 of MES. Katara POV with random Ursa POV thrown in.

* * *

Katara dipped her brush into the small flask of ink on the desk and stared at it for a long moment. Three weeks. She'd delayed her return to home for three weeks…and they had been the longest three weeks of her life. She felt like she'd aged ten years since Zuko and Mai's wedding. The time was insane. The cause of it all was worse.

She put her brush on the paper and wrote:

 _Ozai did it._

She stared at her brush, stared at the paper, and wondered why she would open a letter to her family like that. Sokka had already written their dad and Gran Gran about what had happened, but this was the first time Katara could put together two thoughts enough to write to them. After hearing confirmation of who had ordered Azula's murder, her mind was no longer working again.

They'd known since the archer had been conscious enough to give them an answer, but even then Katara hadn't wanted to believe the truth. She didn't think Ozai was anything more than an irredeemable bastard, but it was still a stretch to imagine he could want to murder a woman he considered his daughter. And yet he'd tried.

Ozai had ordered the death of the only person in the world who still cared about him enough to visit him. Who paid for his care. Who was the reason he'd been moved to a more comfortable place to live. Zuko was convinced Ozai must have found out about Azula's actual parentage, but Iroh had been uncharacteristically grave when he said it wasn't as likely as Zuko believed. He'd been very quiet in the last few weeks, coming by to sit beside Azula and talk softly or just hold her hand. Katara assumed his silence was out of fear, like her own, but during that painful conversation, she realized he was angry.

Ursa was angry too, but it was that of barely controlled panic, a lot like Katara's had been—was still. Except right now, Katara was just numb.

Family… Family didn't do this to each other.

She listened for a long moment, focusing on the heavy inspiratory breaths that Azula took in the other room. Azula's physician, Ling, called it inspiratory stridor. He used a lot of words that Katara was finally starting to understand. Even when she had memorized what every structure looked like in a human neck, she hadn't understood how all the parts worked. She'd been wrong about quite a few things, like the assumption that Azula's trachea was closed off when she was eating and drinking. That failure to close had resulted in aspiration pneumonia on top of the infection caused by the arrows that went through her chest…her thorax. She still coughed when she drank and ate, terrifying Katara that she was choking.

Ling used words like recurrent laryngeal nerve, arytenoid cartilage, aspiration pneumonia, paradoxical movement, pleural effusion, pulmonary edema, laryngeal paralysis, pneumothorax, thoracotomy, tracheostomy, lavage, coupage, and so many more. Learning those words was like learning a new language, and each one brought another flush of terror.

Many of the procedures he told her about were worst-case: they would only perform them if it was certain Azula would die without that intervention, in which case she could die from the procedures themselves. They did what they could to ease the burden from Azula: sat her up in bed, held her head high when she couldn't breathe, and sedated her when she got too desperate for air. So far she hadn't needed a radical surgery.

One certain truth remained: if Azula didn't get better in six months, she never would.

Katara had taken to listening to Azula all the time, especially in another room. Now she closed her eyes and listened to the painful sound of Azula breathing against the tissues in her own throat. It was a steady noise, thankfully not one of desperation. Hopefully Azula was asleep.

 _I have to stay. Azula needs me. I miss you all, and I love you all._

She nearly closed the letter but continued with a shaky hand:

 _Azula has gotten a little better… Or I hope she has. I pray she has. It was… I was really afraid last week. She nearly didn't make it through the night. She turned blue…cyanotic, her physician calls it. I was so stupid. She'd fallen off of her pillows, and the idiot didn't wake me up until she was suffocating._

 _Ling says her throat is paralyzed…that part you use to talk. It's in charge of more than that though, and there're two pieces of flesh that close together like lips. They're supposed to open when we inhale. Azula's don't work right. She's got scarring all around that area, but the part of her that's in charge of telling them to open when she breathes doesn't work, so they slap closed when she inhales. She has to breathe against them._

 _I can't do anything for her._

Katara stared at that last sentence and wanted to tear up the paper in her hands. What was the use of waterbending if she couldn't fix the person she loved? Why was she so fucking useless? Katara took a deep breath, something she didn't take for granted anymore, and placed her trembling hand flat on the cool polished wood of the desk.

 _We just have to wait and see. Ling told me that this sort of injury happens rarely, but they have case reports from physicians all over the world. There seems to be a cutoff point at six months for recovery. If Azula doesn't get better before then, she won't._

 _I'm so scared. What if she doesn't? What if_

' _What if I did this to her?'_ she was going to write. Katara dropped her face in her hand and wiped away her tears angrily. Ling had told her Azula would have died if Katara hadn't healed what she could immediately after the injury. Katara had to trust him; the alternative was something she couldn't bear.

He tried once to tell her it could have been worse: tracheal collapse, spinal cord injury, laceration of the great vessels of Azula's chest… It had only taken him a moment of seeing her reaction to immediately stop listing those scenarios. In the end, worse was death.

Regardless, Katara couldn't leave. She had to be sure that Azula would make it through this. If she was gone and Azula—

She couldn't leave.

 _So I'm going to stay. I don't know when I can come back. Write me and let me know how everyone is doing. I'll update you when I can._

 _Love,_

 _Katara_

She sealed the letter and set it in the little wicker basket that all of Azula's outgoing mail went into, waiting for one of her staff members to take it to the post in the morning. Katara rubbed her face, put on a smile, and walked into the bedroom.

It was like stepping into a tropical jungle. Ling had set up a water boiler that also evaporated incense. The moisture helped Azula's throat, and the incense was supposed to also help her lungs.

Azula wasn't asleep. She watched Katara with an intensity that meant she had a request. She looked so weak. She'd dropped so much weight despite it only being a few weeks since she'd been so healthy. That was another word Ling used: cachexia, and word that had horrified Katara when she looked it up in one of the many medical texts stacked around Azula's apartment.

"What do you need, baby?"

Azula used one finger to tap the paper next to her. She looked so exhausted. There were dark shadows under her eyes. It was hard for her to sleep with the effort she took to breathe. Ling had suggested placing a wide tube from her mouth to her trachea, but Azula refused, and she was aware enough that Katara knew she couldn't force it. In the worst case, they would have to surgically open Azula's tracheal and place a tube there for her to breathe through.

Ling spoke of all the complications: inflammation, infection, tracheal collapse, further damage to the nerves supplying Azula's larynx… The procedure was getting better, but it was still bad and the equipment they would have to use would just increase the damage to the area of Azula's trachea that was working perfectly well.

So they let her be and hoped for the best.

She was napping constantly, eating when bid, and interactive even rendered mute. Her fever had gone down, she demanded daily baths, and she usually moved to the sitting room for a few hours a day. This was tremendous improvement. There wasn't much else Katara could ask for right now.

She still wished there was more they could do for her. She and Ling had many long conversations about medicine, surgery, and healing. It had stunned Katara to hear that waterbending healing actually slowed the progress of non-bending therapies. She wasn't sure she believed it, and yet… This man knew more about the human body than any waterbender she knew. Katara certainly learned that she had taken that knowledge for granted. There had to be some way to marry her skills with Ling's knowledge, especially his extensive knowledge of analgesics.

They kept Azula on an opioid analgesic. Ling called it a sedative antitussive. It helped a little with the pain, a lot with Azula's painful coughing, and a great deal more with keeping her quiet and calm. Even then sometimes they had to give her another sedative when she began to panic for more air.

Katara brushed her fingertips over Azula's as she settled on the bed. She tried to read what was on the paper. It was written in the phonetic script of the Fire Nation, and her tired mind had trouble sounding out those symbols. Katara rubbed her eyes and tried to focus on the writing. Azula waited for a few patient moments before she picked up the pen and wrote the morpheme for cat.

"You want Tonky?" Katara asked, startled.

Azula nodded firmly. Katara leaned close to kiss her gently. Why hadn't she thought of that? "I'll go tell Kota."

A hand on her own stopped her progress. Azula met her eyes in a long look, and she squeezed Katara's hand. Katara picked up that hand and kissed it. "I love you," Katara told her softly. Azula looked at her very seriously as she brushed her fingertips across Katara's cheek.

Katara understood what she meant.

* * *

"You look like you need a drink."

Katara jumped and turned her head from where she'd been staring at the dragon carved into one of the balcony rails. It was an elegant carving, not like the more realistic paintings of Sozen's blue dragon that littered the palace. There was a deep gouge through the dragon's body, damage that had been polished over time and time again. She hadn't noticed the imperfection until now. She glanced over at Ling, who poured her a cup of tea. He removed a flask from his robes and dripped a few drops of clear liquid into it.

"No. I can't. I need to be ready—"

"You need sleep as much as Princess Azula does."

It was hard to sleep when all she did in bed was listen for Azula's next breath.

Ling poured himself a more generous portion of liquor in his tea. He sipped his tea and sighed. "And just when I was contemplating retirement. There hasn't been much for me to do since the war ended."

His voice was dark with stress and displeasure. He was a naturally dry man, and Katara knew he was unhappy with Azula's current condition. She asked him, "What do you mean?"

"I was appointed…" Ling raised his eyes towards his bald head. Azula was right, his nose hairs were more numerous than the ones on his head. "Oh, forty years ago? I served as an apprentice for half of those years, but I saw every case that my predecessor did while I lived in this palace. The royal family is prone to injury."

"Azula probably saw you every day."

He smiled and shook his head. "Rarely, in fact. Only if her burns became infected. Fire Lord Ozai raised her as he was raised: burns are no injury. And if something is not an injury, it should not be treated. So they gritted their teeth and bore the pain. I did prescribe her a great many analgesics. Willow bark extract was a particular favorite. It helped with other injuries as well." He took another sip of tea.

"Other injuries?" Katara found herself asking with a voice trembling in barely controlled anger.

"Contusions," he said simply. "Scrapes. Small things. The Princess's worst injuries were self-inflicted."

"What?!" Katara gasped.

Ling glanced at her in surprise. "Oh, not on purpose. Purely accidental. Princess Azula is an avid firebender, or she was as a girl. All young proficient firebenders have a penchant to self-burning. They can't help it. It's just the nature of the element. They want their flame to be stronger, better, hotter, and that flame takes that strength and heat and becomes its own animal.

"The worst cases, though… Those are the lightning cases. It's like clockwork. Princess Azula came to me just after Fire Lord Zuko was banished. Burns to her feet but no entry burn: common for a self-inflicted lightning injury. She had an abnormal heartbeat that resolved after a few days. I was fearful of pulmonary edema, but…" He shook his head. "Fire Lord Ozai had the same injury at that age. As did General Iroh. Azulon and Sozin both did the same.

"I don't know if their age or their bloodline keeps them safe from the usual effects of lightning. Thankfully it occurs on the first attempt, when their ability to create that energy is far less than after practice."

"Why would they ever think that's a good idea?"

Lin smiled gently. "Firebending prodigies believe they are the best. They think they can do anything, especially in this family. In many cases they're right. In the case of lightning…" He shook his head.

"How could you know what Ozai was doing to her and not do anything?"

When Ling met her eyes, his own were dark and unhappy. "What was done was the same that had been done for hundreds of years. The Fire Lord trains his own sons and daughters in the way he was trained because it's what has worked for centuries. This family has kept the throne longer than any other without a break in their line. Who am I to intervene if that training doesn't cause permanent harm?"

"Bodily harm," Katara said quietly. "You mean bodily harm. Because it definitely did do permanent harm."

Ling looked at her with vague regret. "We all fight our own battles," he said softly. "My place is to ease pain when allowed. I did as much as I was allowed. I knew at least I could trust myself to do that. Could I trust whoever Fire Lord Ozai would appoint after me if I overstepped?"

"I hate this country," Katara said bitterly, staring at her teacup.

"Do you?" Ling asked her gently. "This country is the reason Princess Azula is the way she is. Would you love her otherwise?"

* * *

Ursa sat down gently on the bed, but Azula didn't stir. It was hard to know if she was awake, but at least her skin was cool to the touch. Her infection was low-grade, no longer causing a raging fever, and the physician seemed to think the infection was regressing a little bit at a time. The dappled cat on the bed next to Azula opened her eyes to look at Ursa disdainfully. That silly animal only budged from Azula's side to eat and use Ursa's garden as her lavatory.

But the bearded cat seemed to comfort Azula, who needed all the comfort in the world right now.

Her poor little girl.

Ursa brushed her fingertips across Azula's cheek, and Azula turned her face into that touch. Ursa's strong, emotionally independent daughter had never accepted touch the way she did now. Now even the faintest suggestion of a smile gently curved the edges of Azula's mouth. She opened her golden eyes and looked at Ursa from where she leaned against her hand.

Ursa burst into tears.

How had Ozai done this?

Azula touched her face, and Ursa clutched at her fingers as she calmed herself. "I'm sorry," she said, wiping her eyes on her sleeves. What the hell did she care about using a handkerchief?

Azula tapped the bed to her right side. Ursa climbed up onto the bed and reached out to help Azula position her writing tablet, pen, and paper. Azula's fingers flicked in certain decline. Ever independent. She did it herself. After a moment, Azula wrote: _Who_?

She'd been writing that word for weeks. They'd all been putting her off for only a few. The archer had taken a few days to recover, though he had been willing to tell them the truth about who had ordered the assassination. Zuko had allocated as many soldiers as he could to capture Ozai, but Ozai and his ally had fled to the independent lands of the northern Air Nomad islands. The Dai Li were all gone on their own search except two men that remained in constant watch over Azula. Ursa bet on them finding Ozai first. It was just a matter of whether they would kill him or bring him back alive.

Ursa wrung her hands. Azula's expression hardened, and she looked at Ursa with some of her old sternness. She deserved to know, as much as it terrified Ursa to think of how Azula would react.

Azula put her pen gently against her paper and tapped that word.

"Ozai."

Azula's expression didn't change. Her eyes turned away to stare across the room. Azula turned back to the paper and wrote: _Why_?

Ursa opened her mouth to explain, and Azula wrote _Why_? again. And again. And again, until the paper was black and torn and her feather pen snapped and splattered ink across the coverlet and Azula's hand.

Then Azula gave a heavy, painful breath that Ursa privately thought was as close to a sigh as she could make. This entire time, she hadn't shed one tear. "Do you want more paper before I explain?" Ursa asked.

Azula nodded, giving her ink-stained hand a regretful look.

It took her servant a few minutes to clean everything up. When they were alone again, Ursa sat next to Azula and met her eyes. She hesitantly touched Azula's shoulder, surprised when she wasn't rebuffed. "He's escaped with his ally. We think the warden of his prison orchestrated everything for him."

Azula's jaw tightened, and then oddly, she smiled. It wasn't a happy smile.

"The archer told us. He'll be executed when we have Ozai in custody."

 _How long have you known?_

"We found journals hidden away in the compound." Ursa hated to think about the illogical, raging ramblings of a man who she used to have some measure of affection for.

 _Why?_

"Because of Katara," Ursa confirmed.

Azula's teeth clenched. She turned her eyes away. And finally, tears rose to her eyes.

When they caught Ozai… He should be drawn and quartered as far as Ursa was concerned, but Zuko would never do something like that. Azula wouldn't want it either. So Ursa kept her desires quiet. Iroh had been frightening recently with his brooding anger. And poor Katara… She'd burst into tears when Zuko told them all the truth.

"They know where he went. They're going to bring him back."

 _Does Katara know?_

"Yes."

Azula's mouth pursed in displeasure.

* * *

Katara opened her eyes in the darkness of the night, uncertain about what had woken her. She closed her eyes and sighed, drifting slowly off to sleep, by now resigned to the coating of sweat on her skin from the steam treatment. And then she realized what had woken her: silence.

She couldn't hear Azula breathing.

Katara sat up in fear and reached out to touch the still form, reclined on only a few pillows. When had she pushed her pillows away? She needed to be sitting up higher to make it easier to breathe…

Azula's hand was warm beneath hers. Katara gasped when she saw the shallow but steady rise and fall of her chest. Now she heard the faint rasping sound of inspiration. Gone was her full stridor though. The heavy, labored, wheezing gasp wasn't there, replaced by a softer noise altogether.

Azula stirred. Her eyes opened momentarily, and she smiled and reached out to touch Katara's face. Azula's hand cupped her head, and she pulled Katara against her side. It was the first time they would be like this since Azula had been hurt, though Katara had switched the side of bed she slept on to avoid Azula's injured right side. On the pillow to Azula's right side, Tonky got up, circled, and lay back down with a sigh.

She was too afraid to put much pressure on Azula's weak chest, but Katara eventually settled the full weight of her head there. She closed her eyes and listened to the steady beat of Azula's heart. It was a slow beat, maybe one beat per second, but its rate increased slightly with each inhalation. It meant Azula wasn't in pain for the first time in weeks. Azula's breaths were relatively clear, and they were deeper than they had been. She had regained some function back, enough that she wasn't breathing against her own tissues.

Katara took a shaky breath, relieved and terrified in turn. This could mean Azula had turned to the road of recovery. Or, an unhappy fearful part of her whispered, it could mean Azula was about to die.

The next morning, Katara awoke to an empty bed. She got up and found Azula on the settee with a book and a cat both in her lap. Her breathing was still soft. There was a plate with a few remnants of softly stirred eggs and boiled oats on a small table beside her. She saw Katara and smiled.

Katara sat down on the floor and leaned against Azula's side, content to hold her hand in that moment.

* * *

"What's wrong?"

Katara took one look at Iroh and burst into tears. He drew her close to him, and she sobbed against his shoulder until she was hiccoughing and couldn't find her breath.

Iroh hushed her gently and pulled them to sit by the garden path. "What's this?" he asked her.

"She told me to leave."

Iroh pulled Katara back against him, and she continued crying, shaking and unhappy and afraid. "What if she needs me?"

"I don't think she would tell you to leave if she thought she wouldn't manage without you." Iroh's expression was sober but gentle. He'd lost whatever darkness he'd carried around him while Iroh was still alive. Katara, Zuko, and Ursa had been worried when Iroh left the day of Ozai's execution. They said nothing about the fact Ozai had a swollen, bruised cheek when he hanged.

Katara hoped Iroh told Ozai that Azula wasn't his daughter. She hoped it hurt Ozai as much as he had hurt Azula.

"She's worried about you," Iroh continued gently. "She may need some time to focus on healing and not have to worry over you."

"Why would she worry about me? She's the one who's so hurt—"

"She loves you, and she knows you aren't happy."

Katara did want to go home, but she didn't want to leave Azula. She'd asked Ling desperately if she could take Azula with her, but he'd been grave as he told her in all certainty that the cold, dry air, the stress of the trip, and the unfamiliar place would kill Azula. She'd known, but she had hoped…

"What if I leave and she—" Katara couldn't say it.

"She won't die," Iroh said. For once his voice was sharp. "You should go home, be with your family, and come back. Even if you're only gone for a few weeks, it will be good for both of you."

* * *

Gran Gran and her dad were waiting for her as she stepped off the ship onto the ice of her home. Katara staggered into Gran Gran's arms, weeping again. Gran Gran's hands were rough and gentle against her head. Then, so gently, she pushed Katara into Hakoda's arms, and Katara settled against his broad, strong chest and took comfort in her father.

They watched her with real worry when she pulled back. Hakoda was a little pale. "What happened?"

Katara realized they didn't know Azula was okay. "She's better. She's okay. I'm just…" Katara wiped her face quickly, and her voice softened from the tightness of her tears. "I'm really worried."

"How bad is she?" Hakoda asked. Katara knew him well enough to know he wasn't asking that out of some awful hope that Azula wouldn't get better. Her daddy didn't like Azula, but he would never wish her death.

"Bad. Really bad. But she's better."

Gran Gran took Katara's arm. "Let's have some tea. I made seal sausage."

Oh, seal sausage. Possibly the most comforting food ever made anywhere.

Sitting in her grandmother's hut, eating a rich stew of seaweed and seal sausage flavored with sour sea prune essence, Katara was home again. A heavy weight lifted from her shoulders, immediately placing the heavy weight of guilt back on them. After a few minutes, Pakku entered the hut, offered a stiff but wanted hug, and poured himself a bowl.

"I was arguing with Aang. I heard someone scream—a painful scream—and Zuko was shouting. But someone fell through the patio, and I didn't realize… I finally looked over, and I saw—" Katara took a shuddering breath. She saw Azula crouched, with her hands flat on the ground, Zuko bent over her. His skin had been so white against the puckered red of his scar.

She hadn't understood why Azula would be reaching for something on the ground, and then she'd realized.

Everyone had been running over. Katara didn't remember much about getting to Azula, or seeing her injuries, except that crystal moment of shock when she'd reached out to fix, heal, make whole again and realized that she didn't know what the hell she was doing. It wasn't a burn. It wasn't a broken bone with the so easy to feel blood vessels and muscles of the limbs. It wasn't a bruise, with the steady sense of blood flushing into an area.

It was a penetrating wound through tissues with so much blood and lymph flowing in all different directions that she couldn't make much sense of what was going on. So she'd done what she could to stop the bleeding and close the wound. She should have waited, but she wasn't sure Azula would have made it if they'd left the arrow in her throat.

They'd kept the arrow in her chest until they could transport her to the ward in the palace. They'd cut her robes off, carefully sawed off the edges of the shaft, and gently removed it as Katara went behind to heal the damage she could. The lungs were hard too: so much air intertwined with blood and tissue. She could sense each lobe and the great vessels, but all the capillaries and tiny air bubbles (alveoli) in the lungs were too numerous, too small, and too haphazard.

Someone touched her hand. Katara felt her own tears hit her wrists, and she looked up to meet Pakku's concerned gaze. He said, "I have no doubt that Azula was in the best hands for her injuries. I have never met a waterbender healer that would ever want to trade places with you. The neck is one of the most difficult areas to heal if only for the fact it is almost entirely blood and tissue."

"I could have caused more damage—"

"Possibly you did," he said not unkindly. "But you also saved her life. What's losing her voice to losing her life?"

Oh. Katara heaved a shuddering breath. Pakku squeezed her hand again. "Think of how much you've learned."

"It wasn't a learning opportunity!"

"And you can give that knowledge to others."

Katara remembered her wish to marry medical arts with healing. She realized Pakku was right. Never would she want this, but at least she could make something out of it.

* * *

Azula was waiting for her on the docks. It had been three long week apart. She was still so thin, so pale, but she stood firm with her hand on a Dai Li guard's arm. She smiled and reached out to Katara, who carefully folded her into a hug. Katara couldn't stop her first shaking sobs, though she managed to control them. Azula's chest was thin in her arms; her breasts were small; but her grip on Katara was strong again.

Azula pulled back enough to kiss her gently. She tasted like mint. Katara just stood against her for a long few moments, listening to the clear, easy inhalations and exhalations. She wondered if Azula could speak or make any noise, but she didn't want to see Azula shake her head.

When they got back to the palace, Katara ignored a servant's request to take her bag and instead walked it to Azula's apartment and her bedroom. She was surprised when Azula's arms wrapped around her waist from behind. She was further surprised when Azula pushed her gently towards the bed.

"What are you—?"

Azula's eyes fluttered, and Katara realized she was touching herself. Katara sat down and watched the outline of Azula's hand working between her own legs. Azula withdrew her hand and rubbed those fingers against Katara's lips. She smelled and tasted Azula's spicy musk and took those fingers into her mouth, sucking and tracing over them with her tongue. Azula's eyes closed, and she settled against Katara's hip to rock against her.

Katara fumbled with her tunic, shoved aside her trousers, and found the heat and wetness she loved. Azula rocked against her hand, and she gasped through her nose and shivered only a moment later.

When she raised her head, she pinned Katara with a smoldering look.

Wow. Katara hadn't expected this. She gently rolled Azula over. "Keep going?" she asked.

Azula sent her a vaguely irritated look. She reached out to pull at Katara's tunic, and Katara shucked her clothes. She settled between Azula's legs, anticipated what Azula wanted, and turned her hips so that Azula could see her. Azula was breathing harder, but the breaths were clear.

Her fingers brushed over Katara's breasts and her sex, and… Katara seized one and brought it to her lips, then she leaned forward to kiss Azula. The feel of that mouth against hers and Azula's clever, wicked fingers working magic was enough. Katara was crying when she came, but she was so desperately happy, so relieved.

She shifted her body to Azula's apparent displeasure, and reached out to gently touch and feel. Azula cupped her face, and her breaths deepened and slowed. She was falling asleep.

"I love you," Katara told her.

Azula's hand tightened on hers, and she smiled. She opened her mouth, tried to speak, and winced. It was a thin noise, but it was definitely a vocalization. Katara settled into her arms crying. "That's great, baby. That's so good."

Finally, Katara dared believe that Azula could heal.


	14. Father

Iroh waited on the balcony of the apartment he shared with Ursa. The game was set, and the tea was ready. The only thing missing was his opponent.

A few minutes later, Azula joined him on the balcony. She saw the game board and sighed. Her expression shifted into a faint smile. She wasn't wearing her topknot that day, and her robes were looser than her usual. Finally, Iroh saw pregnancy in the filling shape of her body. Ursa had guessed a while ago that she might be pregnant, but Iroh saw it now. She was beautiful.

"Sit, please."

Azula put on her usual feigned displeasure. "I do so wish you'd find something else to divert you."

"I'll stop inviting you to play when you beat me."

"It's impossible to win when there are no rules."

"Harmony, Azula."

"Yes, yes," she responded, performing an eye-roll that would have had Ursa snorting fire in irritation. Azula flicked a piece lackadaisically across the board. She sniffed her tea, then sipped. "Thank you for not using me as a rooster pig for your newest tea craze."

"This is a blend you like, yes?"

"Yes." Azula studied the piece that Iroh had placed before she placed her own.

"How are you feeling?"

"Well enough. I can't wait until the smell of fish doesn't turn my stomach. I miss it, as sick as it's been making me feel."

Clearly she was not trying to hide a possible pregnancy. Iroh ignored the implication of morning sickness. He said, "I once overindulged and lost the taste for my favorite fried komodo rhino. It took ten years before I could eat that meal again." That night, he'd overindulged in wine, liquor, food, and women. It wasn't a fond memory; it had taken him years to realize his over-indulgences had always been in response to some perceived failure.

"Partly why I'm avoiding fish in the first place."

"Are you happy?"

Azula turned away from the game to meet his eyes. "Yes, Father."

Iroh's breath caught in his chest, and he had to stand up and take a step away as tears rose to his eyes uncontrollably. He turned back and reached out to draw Azula to him in a hug. "Humor me, child," he said as he held her, and she did.


End file.
